


Little Audible Links

by invisibledaemon



Series: The Volumes We Mean [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Established Relationship, F/M, Holidays, Minor Coulson/May and Bobbi/Hunter, Sequel, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5606797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisibledaemon/pseuds/invisibledaemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is a relationship like when you know you're fated to be together? </p><p>Exploring Clint and Natasha's first year through a series of holiday oneshots.</p><p>Sequel to Great Inaudible Feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sequel to Great Inaudible Feelings. You should probably read that first! Takes place during the year of the epilogue, so this starts about a week after the end of chapter 12. Technically this is New Year's Eve, not New Year, but oh well. 
> 
> More detailed notes at the end!

“Are you sure you _have_ to put on clothes?”

“Pretty sure this isn’t a nudist party, Clint. At least, I’ve never known Steve and Bucky to throw a clothing-optional party.”

“Are you sure we have to _go_?” The dork actually pouted, but Natasha was pretty sure he was kidding. Despite the fact that he was now keeping her firmly encircled in his arms, he had happily agreed to go when she asked him earlier.

They were currently tangled together in bed after a post-coital nap, not an unfamiliar position for them lately. Natasha was pretty sure she’d had more sex in this one week than she’d had in her entire life. She was also pretty sure she was happier than she’d been in her entire life. But they hadn’t left the apartment at all this week other than for work; amazing sex notwithstanding, she was going to get stir-crazy soon.

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” she reminded Clint. “You want to just spend the entire night at home, naked?”

“Why not? That’s how we spent Christmas.”

“One naked holiday per year.” She kissed him and then slid out of bed. “That’s the limit. Now go put on some clothes. _Dress_ clothes.”

He grumbled discontentedly, but Natasha was pretty sure this was his ‘pretending to be irritated’ grumbling, not his genuine, ‘someone ate all my Lucky Charms’ grumbling.  She’d gotten pretty good at identifying his noises and moods, even before this last week.

Sure enough, he soon sighed and smiled at her, throwing off the covers, unabashedly naked (and really, there was nothing to be abashed about). As he stood, the four words across his stomach caught her eye, as they always did. His soulmark no longer caused a painful twisting in her stomach, but rather a pleasant warmth to spread through her body. She instinctively rubbed the cast on her arm, where her mark was hidden underneath the skin.

“I kind of feel like this is our soulmate party,” Clint said as he came back into her room a few minutes later, fully dressed. It was dark jeans and a plain black t-shirt, but neither was wrinkled so Natasha was going to count that as a win.

She scoffed at his statement, though. “I don’t think anyone has had a soulmate party since the 80’s.”

“Probably because they all want to spend their first week like we have.” He waggled his eyebrows. She didn’t bother to respond, because he was probably right. Instead, she held up two dress options and he shrugged.

“They’re both pretty.”

“Useless,” she muttered, turning back to riffle through her options some more.

“Still, though,” Clint said. “It’ll be kind of like an official soulmate intro party. How many people know we’re actually soulmates?”

“Like, everyone? Steve and Bucky obviously.”

Clint groaned in embarrassment at the memory.

She and Clint had discovered they were soulmates on Christmas. After resisting each other for two months, they had a lot of built up tension to get out. She’d ignored her phone the entire day, which had apparently worried Steve and Bucky so much that they’d burst into their apartment while Natasha and Clint were in the middle of something on the couch, both only half-dressed.

They were very happy for them, once everyone was fully dressed and able to explain.

“I told Phil,” Clint said. “He came by the shelter the other day.” There was a pause, then, “He wants to meet you.”

She couldn’t read his tone, so she turned to look at him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, twiddling his thumbs and not meeting her eyes.

“I want to meet him, too,” Natasha said sincerely, and Clint’s face relaxed into a smile.

“Yeah?”

“Of course. He’s important to you.”

Clint was giving her that ‘I’m about to get all mushy on you’ face, so she turned back to the closet, grabbing the red dress. It wasn’t that she didn’t _like_ mushy Clint; he was quite adorable, even if he was more emotionally open than she was exactly comfortable with. But she’d noticed that mushy Clint tended to lead to amorous Clint, and they were already running late.

So she headed him off. “I assume you told Tony?”

“Why would you assume that?”

“Because you can’t keep anything to yourself? Remember when you told me they got engaged when you were specifically told not to?”

“Hey! I only hinted,” Clint protested. A beat. “I did tell him, though. And Thor. And all the other shelter people. And anyone who came into the shelter this week.”

“Sounds about right,” she said, making only minimal efforts to disguise the affection in her voice. She _had_ told Wanda and Pietro as soon as she saw them at the studio, and she’d called Pepper the day after; she didn’t blame him for being excited to tell people.

Dress chosen, she went to pick out the lingerie to go underneath. She let Clint see her pull out a set with garters that he hadn’t seen yet. His jaw slackened, and he didn’t bother to hide his staring as she put it on.

“You’re teasing me on purpose,” he accused, voice a little deeper than usual.

“Yes.”

Once she was dressed and brushing her hair in front of the bathroom mirror, Clint had recovered himself enough to continue the conversation.

“I guess everyone knows, then?”

“Seems that way. Anyone we didn’t tell, I’m sure Steve did. He loves a good soulmate story.”

“Pretty sure he’s going to ask you to repeat the breaking your arm story for the next ten years, at least,” Clint said, coming up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed a kiss into her hair, mussing what she just brushed.

“Still kind of like our Debut, though,” Natasha admitted. “Since most of them haven’t actually seen us since we found out.”

“Debut?” Clint asked with a teasing grin. “And you made fun of me for bringing up soulmate parties?”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, a little breathlessly. His hand had wondered down to the bottom of her dress, and was now steadily making its way up under it. She was suddenly taut with anticipation. “Some countries still do Debuts.”

“Yeah,” Clint said into her neck. She should really swat his hand away before it got any higher, but she couldn’t seem to make herself do it. “If they’re still in the 19th century.”

“Clint,” Natasha said, voice high-pitched (but definitely not a whine). His hand had found the edge of her underwear and his other hand was dangerously close to her breast. “We’re gonna be late.”

“It’s barely nine, Tasha,” he mumbled. She leaned against his back, willing his hand higher. “Long as we get there before midnight, right?”

She gasped as his fingers finally found their destination. “I promised Steve ten,” she said, but she was already melting into him.

“Ah, you promised? Okay,” Clint said, pulling his hand away. She considered stabbing him.

He backed out of the bathroom, an invitation in his smile, and Natasha warred with herself for exactly two seconds before she followed him.  

 

 

They made it to Steve and Bucky’s by 10:45, which frankly Clint considered an accomplishment. The way she looked in red, it was amazing he _ever_ managed to leave the apartment.

The party was in full swing by the time they got there. Judging by the identical smirks on their faces when they opened the door, Steve and Bucky had a pretty good idea of why they were late.

“We were beginning to wonder if you were going to show up,” Bucky said, while Steve dove straight in to hug Natasha. He hugged Clint next, squeezing tight. 

“She looks happy,” Steve whispered to him. “That’s nice to see.” He grinned at Clint when he pulled away. He felt oddly as though he’d just gotten a stamp of approval.

“So,” Bucky said. “How has your week been?”

Clint smothered a grin, wondering how many details he really wanted.

“You pretty much saw how it’s been,” Natasha answered.

“Nat,” Steve whined. “I just got those images out of my head.”

“Now you know how I felt,” she said with a theatrical shudder.

“Seriously, you look happy,” Bucky observed, as Steve had. It made Clint wonder how she’d been for the two weeks prior to breaking her arm. He knew from experience that Natasha did not often wear her emotions on her sleeve, but for the people close to her it was easy to tell what she was feeling. He was glad to be part of what made her happy.

With these thoughts, he couldn’t stop himself from throwing his arm around her, pulling her in close. He worried sometimes that he was going to overload her ability to handle PDA, but so far she had seemed fine. She even leaned into his side a little.

“I am,” Natasha said, and Clint nodded.

“I told you,” Steve said, not a little smugly. “I _told_ you that you had a soulmate.”

“You were right,” she said. “And I’m very glad to have been wrong.”

Clint remembered a conversation from when they still believed they were just friends, about how Natasha hadn’t believed she had a soulmate. As far as she’d known, her mother and her grandmother both hadn’t either, as they’d never gotten their soulmarks. But he always thought she had one. He held out hope that somehow, impossible as it seemed, it could still be her. And it was.

“I wish my mom had lived to see,” Natasha said quietly. “I wonder if my father was her soulmate after all.”

“Maybe,” Bucky said.

“I bet they were.” Clint believed that. Maybe they’d been the same as the two of them; friends first and then giving in… only to tear themselves apart with the belief that they couldn’t be together, never discovering her hidden mark.

Natasha did that little hair flip that she did when she was getting overwhelmed, so he cast about for a change of subject.

As they were talking, Clint estimated about five strangers pushed past him, and they were surrounded on all sides by people. He could hardly take a step without bumping into someone.

“Guys,” Clint said, casting his eyes around the room. “I didn’t even know you _knew_ this many people.”

Bucky cleared his throat, giving Steve an impatient glare.

Steve sighed. “Alright, alright. It’s possible that I maybe should not have invited the entire building. I didn’t think this many people would actually come!”

Clint didn’t know a lot of people there, but Natasha knew a few more. A couple of people from Steve’s station came up to talk to them, already having been told by Steve that they were soulmates.

“I totally knew this was our Debut,” Clint whispered as the latest well-wishers walked off. Natasha just rolled her eyes in a way he now recognized as fond.

Tony and Pepper were next. 

“The alcohol selection at this party is abysmal,” Tony said by way of greeting. He shook his plastic cup at them. “No scotch. No bourbon. No rum.”

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” Pepper said, coming up behind him. “You drink champagne.”

“Or vodka,” Natasha said, pulling a couple of tiny bottles out of her purse that Clint didn’t know had been there. God _damn,_ he loved her.

“Russia here gets it,” Tony said, making grabby hands for the bottles.

“No way,” Pepper said. “You are not mixing your liquor.”

“Champagne hardly counts!” Tony protested, but Pepper ignored him, instead pulling Natasha and – to his surprise, Clint - into a hug.

“I’m so happy it all worked out,” she said, grinning. 

“Yeah, congratulations,” Tony said to Clint. “Natasha… good luck with him.” Pepper smacked his arm.

Sam was next, proving them wrong in their assumption that everyone already knew about them.

“Hey Nat –“ he said, coming up with a smile, which dropped into a confused frown when he saw Clint with his arm around her. “Uh… hi, Clint.”

Clint and Natasha exchanged a glance, and Clint signed, _‘I don’t think he knows.’_

Sam, it turned out, did not know, as he’d been gone for most of the last week, meeting his soulmate’s family for the holidays.

“That’s great!” He said, and became the third person to hug Clint in the last twenty minutes. “Steve told me how hard you were taking it,” he said to Natasha, who looked a little embarrassed. Clint rubbed her arm soothingly; he knew how hard _he_ had taken the thought that they may not be together. He imagined it had been about the same for Natasha.

“And hey!” Sam said excitedly. “Now I won’t feel bad introducing you to my soulmate. I thought you’d be all depressed and shit.”

“All depressed and shit?” Clint repeated. “Is that the official therapist term for it?”

Sam rolled his eyes playfully. “How you gonna put up with him?” He asked Natasha.

“With therapy and shit, I guess.”

Sam looked back and forth between them with poorly disguised amusement. “I can’t decide which of you is the bad influence.” Then he turned, yelling over his shoulder, “Darcy!”

“What?” Came an answering yell from somewhere in the mass of people.

“C’mere! Time to meet more people!”

“For fuck’s sake, Sam,” a pretty brunette woman said as she pushed between a group of people. “I introduced you to my friends one or two at a time, not at one giant party.”

“I think this is better.” Sam grinned “Get them all over with at once.”

“Stop,” Clint said dryly. “You’re flattering us.”

“Darcy,” Sam said. “This is Natasha, Steve’s best friend. And this is Clint, her soulmate.”

Clint smiled proudly, and Natasha sent him a little smile of her own; this was the first time they had ever been introduced as soulmates.

“Hi.” Darcy waved. “I’m obviously Darcy. This is the guy who gave me the world’s most boring soulmark.” She moved her hair to the side so they could see the words _‘Excuse me’_ written on her neck.

“I don’t know,” Clint said. “Natasha wasn’t that original either.” He showed her and Sam his.

“’Nice to meet you’?” Darcy nodded. “Alright, so our soulmates are both unoriginal. We should start a club.”

“Hey,” Sam protested. “I gave you _material._ I was dressed as an _elf._ No wonder yours is less common.”

Despite some playful arguing, Sam and Natasha did eventually agree that their soulmates had the more original first words.

 _Damn straight,_ Clint thought, though he wouldn’t trade his words for any others. These were the words that told the world he belonged to Natasha, and he wouldn’t have it any other way, common mark or not.

“I’m glad it was you,” Clint whispered to her, stroking his fingers over her cast as he’d seen her doing a lot this past week. The words _‘Please let it be you,’_ weren’t visible, but he knew they were there. He had a picture of an X-ray hanging in their living room to prove it.

Natasha gave him an affectionate smile, reaching up to give him a quick kiss.

“Me too.”

 

 

This party was turning out a lot better than the last one Natasha had been to; she knew more than two people there, for one thing. Plus it was less formal, and, most importantly, she was there with Clint. True, the last party had led to her discovering her soulmark, but it wasn’t exactly what she’d call ‘fun.’

Standing in the corner with Clint, throwing shrimp tails at people’s heads, however? That more closely fit her definition.

“You know,” Maria Hill said, coming to stand next to her. “When I first met you, I didn’t peg you as the type to do something like this.”

“Don’t let her fool you,” Clint said. “She may seem all calm and mature, but deep down she’s goofier than I am.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Natasha muttered. But it was nice sometimes, to forget her age and have some childish fun. That was probably one of the reasons she fell so hard for Clint in the first place.

Her next shot hit Steve directly on the forehead, and she and Clint high-fived.

“Seriously?” Steve called from across the room.

Maria plucked one from her hand and threw it, hitting Steve again. “This is kind of fun.”

“Right?” Clint, unsurprisingly, hit whatever he aimed at with unerring precision. So she could only assume it was 100% intentional when he got Steve in the crotch. The people around him either sniggered or gave her and Clint disapproving looks.  

Steve, after this third shot, marched over to them. Natasha held back a smirk, preparing herself for one of his ‘we’re not in college anymore’ speeches. But when he reached them and saw Maria, his face lit up instead.

“Did you tell them?” He asked her excitedly, and Maria glared at him.

“No,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Tell us what?” Natasha asked.

“Tell them, tell them!” Steve encouraged.

Maria sighed. “I got my mark,” she muttered.

“Congratulations?” Natasha said, almost a question because Maria didn’t seem very enthused.

“Where?” Clint asked.

“Inner thigh,” she said, clearly irritated. “ _Very_ inner thigh.” Natasha and Clint both grimaced, as this was not exactly a desired spot for a soulmark. Maria shrugged one shoulder. “Could be worse. My mother’s was right across her forehead.”

“Thank goodness that stuff skips a generation,” Steve said.

“When did you get it?” Clint asked.

“A week ago,” Maria said, as if she were referring to some repulsive incident.

Natasha was a little surprised at Maria’s reaction; for most people, getting their mark was an anticipated, exciting event, but Maria didn’t seem to view it that way. Natasha absentmindedly stroked her cast, wondering how she would have reacted had she gotten her mark above the skin like everybody else.

“What time is it?” Natasha asked to change the subject.

“11:30,” Steve answered.

“Already?” Maria scanned her eyes around the room as if looking for someone. “Damn. I have to find someone to kiss at midnight.”

“What?” Steve and Clint both exclaimed at the same time.

“You can’t kiss someone who’s not your soulmate!” Steve said. “You got your mark - it’s bad luck!”

“Don’t tell me you actually believe that,” Natasha asked, talking mostly to Clint, who had nodded along with Steve.

Clint sort of half-shrugged. “I don’t think you should risk it. My friend Bobbi kissed me at midnight a couple years ago, even though she’d already gotten her mark. Now she and Hunter are having problems, fighting all the time.”

“Bobbi?” Natasha muttered. He’d once mentioned a ‘Bobbi’ as someone he’d had a fuck buddies arrangement with several years ago.

Clint grinned. “Jealous?” She just rolled her eyes.

“Whatever,” Maria was saying. “I’m not letting some stupid mark on my arm stop me from living my life.” Then she stalked off.

“I can’t believe she’s not happy about this,” Steve said, looking after her.

“Steve,” Natasha said firmly. “I know that look. This is none of your business, don’t go chasing after her trying to stop her. That ‘bad luck’ nonsense is just a superstition.”

“Maybe,” Steve said reluctantly. “I’m just worried about her. She seems so unhappy about her mark.”

“Do you know what it says?” Clint asked.

Steve shook his head. “She wouldn’t tell me.” Then he sighed. “I’m just gonna go talk to her.”

“Steve!” Natasha called, but he had already merged back into the crowd. She shook her head, half exasperated, half fond. “She’s gonna kick his ass one of these days.”

Clint chuckled. “Probably.”

“Hey, Clint?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you react? When you got your mark.”

A slow, goofy smile spread over his face. “I was so happy.”

“Yeah?” Natasha asked softly, unable to stop herself from leaning into him a little, resting her chin against his arm while she looked up at him.

“Yeah. And nervous. Really nervous. I was afraid you wouldn’t like me.”

Natasha knew that was a common fear; Steve had had the same insecurity when he’d gotten his mark. But she found herself wanting to reassure Clint anyway, so she stood on her toes to kiss him.

“I’m gonna show you how much I like you when we get home,” she whispered in his ear.

“Okay!” Clint said, grabbing her hand and trying to tug her forward. “Let’s go home.”

Natasha laughed. “Not until after midnight.”

Clint heaved a dramatic sigh, smile still on his lips.

“Tease.”

 

 

Not long after, Natasha somehow ended up becoming the makeshift bartender, creating more combinations than he thought champagne and vodka should be able to make. Steve was unsurprised (“I’m getting college flashbacks”), and Tony may have fallen in love.

“Where has she been all our lives?” He asked, drinking some orange concoction. “Why didn’t you meet her sooner?”

“I’m so sorry,” Clint said. “My mistake. I should have tried harder to grow my soulmark.”

“Well, as long as you learned something.”

He rolled his eyes. “You and Pepper set a date yet?”

Tony’s sarcastic smile melted into something more genuine and he said, “Well, we set a month: March. We just can’t decide on a day.”

“Doesn’t that depend on how many openings the venue has?”

Tony scoffed. “Do you know who I am? They’ll make an opening.”

Clint had nothing to say to that; he had a point. 

“What about you and Natasha?” Tony asked. 

“What about us?”

“Don’t be coy,” Tony said. “I know you. You’d have married her a month ago.”

Clint looked over at Natasha, still mixing drinks on the other side of the room, that tiny smile on her face that meant she was enjoying herself.

“Yeah, I would’ve.” Soulmarks be damned. Though he was infinitely glad that they turned out to be soulmates after all, he’d meant it when he told her he would have his mark removed to be with her. He didn’t need the words on his stomach to know he loved her. Nor did he _need_ the traditional wedding, which was good because he wasn’t sure Natasha would want to get married. But he sure wanted to, and he hoped she would eventually feel the same.

“Seriously, though,” Tony said, not meeting his eyes. “I’m happy for you.” He cleared his throat, as if the genuine words were painful to get out. Speech over, he downed the rest of his drink in one gulp. Clint tried not to chuckle, because he knew how hard it was for Tony to be sincere when it came to stuff like this.

“Thanks man.” Clint gave his shoulder a light punch. He mentally checked off their emotional bonding quota for the year.

Close to them, Sam suddenly stood on a chair, staring at something on his phone, and whistled to get everyone’s attention.

“Turn the music down!” He yelled. “Alright. The countdown is about to start!” People cheered, and Sam waited a couple of seconds, watching his phone, before he started, and the crowd joined in. “Ten, nine, eight…”

 _Shit,_ Clint thought. He’d completely lost track of time, and now Natasha was nowhere to be seen. It was bad luck not to kiss your soulmate on New Year’s if you’ve met them, and now he had like seven seconds to find his.

_“Seven, six…”_

“I think she’s over there,” Pepper said helpfully, from where she’d suddenly appeared next to Tony. She was pointing towards the other end of the room, where Natasha was standing with Steve and Bucky. Their eyes met and Clint took off.

_“Five, four…”_

Seriously, someone needed to have a discussion with Steve and Bucky about the fire safety code, because he had to push through the huge crowd of people to try to reach Natasha and it was not safe.

_“Three, two…”_

He was close, he could see her now - smiling at him, looking like a dream, like the light at the end of the tunnel. 

_“One!”_

The last two people blocking his path parted for him, and he practically leaped the remaining space between them –

And tripped, landing hard on the floor, just as everyone around them yelled, _“Happy New Year!”_

“Clint!” Natasha was hovering over him, brow furrowed in concern.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” He sat up, ignoring the pain in the back of his head, and cupped her face in his hands, pulling her into a kiss. He felt her lips curve up into a smile, and he deepened the kiss into not-quite-appropriate-for-public territory. But hey, everyone was too occupied to be paying attention to them, anyway.

“That was close,” he panted when they pulled apart. He left his hands on her cheeks, remaining in their awkward position on the floor because he might as well just own it.  

“Afraid of bad luck?” She asked, teasing lilt to her voice.

“Hey,” Clint said, pressing another soft kiss to her lips. “We’ve already spent two months believing we couldn’t be together because you have a rare-as-hell genetic condition. I don’t think we should risk it.”

“You have a point,” Natasha admitted. “But we made it.”

Clint grinned, thinking that, minor head trauma aside, this was the best start to a year he’d ever had.

“Yeah. I think we’re gonna have a good year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! The rest of the stories will have more plot in them (probably), but this one is kind of just a reintroduction to their world. 
> 
> Will be updated on the day of the holiday. I'm planning on doing all the major American holidays, plus a couple less major ones. More tags and characters will be added as the series goes on, including some from Agents of Shield, although if you haven't seen that show you should still be fine! Rating may go up. There'll be some fluff, some angst, lots of idiots being in love. 
> 
> Next time: Martin Luther King Day


	2. Martin Luther King Jr Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has nothing to do with the actual holiday, I just needed an excuse to write about Natasha meeting Phil. 
> 
> ***WARNING*** this chapter contains (pretty mild) SPOILERS for the new Star Wars movie.

Natasha had a rough night’s sleep. Fortunately, once Clint was asleep he was dead to the world, so he didn’t notice her tossing and turning through the night. She was grateful, because he would have asked her what was wrong and she would have had to admit she was scared to meet Phil Coulson.

She’d been getting much better sleep than she was used to lately, and she knew that was due to the man sleeping at her side. Her sleep was mostly dreamless now, which was a blessing compared to the semi-frequent nightmares and occasional insomnia she was used to. Natasha found that she felt much more at peace with herself and with the world, now that it had given her Clint.

But last night she’d had her first nightmare in weeks. She only remembered small bits, flashes of herself wearing a mask, glimpses of someone ripping it off and then leaving her when they discovered what was underneath it. Feeling cold and empty.

Waking up, curling closer to Clint to assure herself that he was still there.

Rationally, she knew Clint was still going to love her even if Phil didn’t, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want him to like her anyway. Clint had talked him up so much and Natasha was eager to make a good impression, considering how important he was to him. But she knew that Clint had told him about her already, even before they’d discovered they were soulmates. So Phil probably knew how she’d broken Clint’s heart when she told him they couldn’t be together. She’d done it for the right reasons, and it had only lasted a couple of weeks… but she was sure it could have sounded heartless from the outside. She had no idea what Phil’s opinion on the matter was. 

Which was why she was quiet today, rubbing her cast and nodding along as Clint rambled, sitting on the subway that would take her and Clint to the restaurant they were meeting at. Phil and his soulmate lived upstate and he was driving down for the day. His soulmate, Melinda, couldn’t get off work, so at least Natasha would only have to meet one new person today.

Normally Natasha would have worked today, too, even though it was a holiday, but one little pout from Clint and she’d canceled all her classes. Perhaps she should have been more upset by this power he apparently had over her, but she knew he’d have done the same for her.

Clint, sitting next to her and practically bouncing in his seat, was currently babbling about how great Phil was and how awesome today was going to be because “my two favorite people finally meeting!” He’d been like this all morning, so excited he’d even woken up before her and shaken the bed until she woke up, too.

As cute as Clint was when he was acting like an eager puppy, he wasn’t exactly helping her nerves.

Thankfully, a woman in a _Star Wars_ shirt got onto the train and Clint was thoroughly derailed, dragging Natasha into a weeks-long argument. She was happy for the distraction.

“But that’s why it was _awesome_!” Clint said for the third time. “The parallels were an amazing homage to the originals.”

She rolled her eyes. “I love a good homage, but that was just laziness. It copied the structure of the originals right down to blowing up the Death Star at the end and the Skywalker living in the desert.”

“We don’t _know_ she’s a Skywalker,” Clint said immediately.

Natasha tipped her head back and groaned. _Not this again._ “Of course she’s a Skywalker! The series is always led by a Skywalker! And that thing with the lightsaber –“

“I’m not saying she’s _definitely_ not.” Clint’s satisfied smirk told her he'd only said that to rile her up. And she'd fallen for it. Again. “I’m just saying we don’t know she is.”

“I hope she’s not,” said the woman in the _Star Wars_ shirt, who was sitting across from them. They had drawn a bit of attention, though most people were politely pretending they couldn’t hear every word of their conversation. “That’s so predictable. I hope she’s Obi-Wan’s love child or something.”

Clint’s eyes lit up. “How funny would that be?”

“Impossible!” Said a man in a suit, standing a little ways down. “She’d be too old.”

“Grand-love child then,” the woman countered.

“Still impossible. Obi-Wan was a Jedi, he’s celibate!” The man seemed quite heated about it.

The woman scoffed. “The Jedi Order is long dead. He doesn’t have to follow their rules anymore.”

“He still did though!” The man said vehemently. “He lived as an effing hermit –“

Despite Natasha kind of wanting to stick around and argue about _Star Wars_ some more, they had reached their stop. She and Clint got off, leaving the argument in the capable hands of the two new people. “We’re just gonna have to see it again,” Clint said. Natasha agreed, though they’d already seen it three times.

They beat Phil to the restaurant, so went ahead and got a table. Natasha did her best not to fidget. _It’s not a big deal,_ she tried to tell herself. Meeting new people was not something that normally made her _this_ nervous; she usually just put on a social face, laughed in the right places, smiled and asked the right questions. But she couldn’t put on an act in front of Phil, essentially the closest thing to a father figure her soulmate had. She had to let him get to know her.  

“He’s gonna love you,” Clint was saying, while, for some reason, stacking coffee creamers in front of her in the shape of a pyramid. He had to stretch at an awkward angle to accomplish this because they were on the same side. “Oh, man, this is so exciting.” He kissed her cheek sloppily and she pretended to be irritated.

She knocked his tower of creamers down and he, in turn, pretended she’d mortally wounded him.

“My beautiful architecture,” he lamented, then set right back to building it again.

“If you keep putting it in my table space I’m going to keep knocking it down.”

Clint ignored her warning and the next few minutes passed like that, him building the tower and her knocking it down. Natasha might have felt bad about it if he didn’t cackle like a child every time.

“I wonder when he’s gonna get here,” Clint said after the fourth tower went down.  

From behind them, making Natasha actually jump a little – though she’d never admit it – a voice responded, “He’s already here.”

It was Phil Coulson, standing behind them and smirking. He was dressed in a suit, as Clint told her he pretty much always was. He sat down on the other side of them and Clint reached over to punch him lightly in the arm.

“How long have you been there?” Clint asked with a grin.

“I just have magical timing,” Phil said enigmatically.

Clint rolled his eyes and said to Natasha, “I bet he was standing there for a full minute hoping one of us would give him an opening.”

He then introduced them, and Natasha tried her best to smile her real smile, not her strangers smile. “I’m very happy to meet you,” she said. “Clint’s told me a lot about you.”

“I bet I’ve heard more about you,” Phil said. “He hasn’t stopped talking about you since he met you.”

Natasha glanced at Clint and saw that he was starting to blush.

“I mean it,” Phil continued, giving her a conspiratorial little smile. “Every time I came into the shelter to visit it was the ‘Let Me Catch You Up on Nat’ Adventure Hour.”

She smiled back and cautiously began to relax – he didn’t seem to hate her so far.

“Okay.” Clint threw his hands out on the table as if he were trying to break up a fight. “Let’s change the subject.”

Natasha would have been amenable to spending the entire meal teasing Clint, but Phil straightened up and grinned; he suddenly appeared to be bursting with the desire to say something. 

“I have an announcement to make, actually.”  

“What?” Clint asked, mirroring Phil’s erect posture.

A brief pause, probably for dramatic effect. “Melinda and I are adopting a child,” he said.

Clint actually gasped. “Really?! That’s so cool!”

Natasha and Clint both congratulated him, and she felt distinctly awkward as the two of them celebrated, chatting enthusiastically.  

“We didn’t want to say anything until we were sure it was going to go through,” Phil explained. “But it’s pretty much guaranteed now. We should have a child in a couple months.”

“That’s awesome!” Clint exclaimed. “That’s a lucky kid, you two are gonna be the best parents ever.”

Natasha wondered what she’d be like as a parent. Clint, she knew, would be a wonderful father; goofy and fun and loving, the master of piggy-back rides and circus tricks. And she was occasionally not terrible with her younger students. She wouldn’t be as good as Clint, but maybe the kids would turn out alright anyway. Although one of them would definitely have to learn how to cook.

She gave herself a little shake. Since when did she even want kids? She’d never really thought about it before and now all the sudden…

She was distracted by the arrival of the food, and realized she’d kind of been drifting, not following the conversation.

Clint had apparently noticed too, because while the waitress was setting down the food, he signed to her, _‘You okay?’_  

She tensed and signed _‘Fine,’_ hand flat and jabbing her thumb into her chest so hard she was afraid it might draw blood. She instantly felt bad for snapping when Clint’s face fell.

Then the waitress left and Natasha floundered for something appropriate to say, knowing she had been awfully quiet. Comment on the food, perhaps? Ask Phil about his soulmate? Everything she tested in her head sounded fake.

It was never this hard with Clint’s other friends, but she had met them all before discovering exactly what Clint meant to her. And his relationship with Phil was rather unique, a strange cross between friend and surrogate father; what exactly were they supposed to talk about?

After stuffing half his sandwich into his mouth, Clint saved her the trouble of speaking and asked, “’Ow’r obbi anter?” with his mouth full. Natasha nudged him with her elbow and he gave her that _‘what did I do?’_ look.

She was about to translate, but Phil was clearly also versed in Clint-speak. He shook his head and said, “Bobbi and Hunter are… not great. They’re fighting all the time.” He let out a weary sigh. “We think they might be considering divorce.”

Clint coughed, nearly choking on his food. Natasha patted his back firmly and he nodded, looking at Phil with wide eyes. “What? I thought they were perfect together! I know they’ve been having problems but… they’re soulmates.” He turned wide doe-eyes on Natasha, as if pleading with her to tell him it wasn’t true. She slid a hand over to his thigh and gave it a squeeze. “And I like Hunter,” he said, almost petulantly.

Phil shrugged a shoulder. “So do I. So does Bobbi. Sometimes soulmates just… have issues. All we can do is hope they work through them. Or Melinda is gonna have to kick one of their asses. Or both of them.”

“She teaches martial arts, right?” Natasha asked.

Phil nodded, smiling proudly. “Yes, in a large gym-slash-fitness studio. She’d have cancelled today, but it’s apparently a busy day and she’s very loyal to the man who runs it. You’ll meet him, too, one day. Anyway, Clint tells me – multiple times, actually – that you teach ballet?”

Natasha nodded. “I do.”

“She’s the best,” Clint said matter-of-factly.

“He’s also told me that multiple times.”

“He’s very effusive,” Natasha said dryly.

“ _You’re_ effusive,” Clint muttered.

Dork didn’t even know what effusive meant. Natasha just rubbed his shoulder, sharing a mutually exasperated smile with Phil. It didn’t matter how much or how little they had in common – they always had Clint to talk about, and Natasha was sure they’d never run out of material there. 

 

 

Clint was relieved that Natasha finally seemed to be relaxing. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d been a little uncomfortable today, being unusually quiet and fiddling with her arm cast absentmindedly. He hadn’t known meeting new people had that effect on her, but he should have guessed; she was genuine in front of very few people. It was hard for her to be herself in front of strangers.

And sure, telling stories about him that were varying levels of embarrassing was what seemed to have bonded her and Phil, but he was happy as long as she was happy. Even if she now knew that he’d accidentally eaten wet dog food on more than one occasion.

The topic only changed when Natasha got up to go to the bathroom.

“Hey,” Phil said. Clint tore his eyes away from Natasha’s retreating form to look at him. “She’s great. I’m really happy for you,” he said seriously. “I knew it would work out.”

It was true. Phil had a lot of faith in soulmates, much more than Clint had ever had. He’d known how Clint felt about Natasha even before he realized it himself, and he always told him just to have faith.

He was going to be smug about this for years, but Clint didn’t mind at all.

“I would have waited for her forever,” he said quietly.

“I feel the same about Melinda,” Phil said. Clint raised an eyebrow and Phil chuckled. “Yes, despite how impatient I was to meet her. It was worth the wait.”

Phil, die-hard romantic that he was, had practically counted the seconds until he got his soulmark – which was difficult, considering he hadn’t gotten it until his late 40’s. He finally got it two years ago, but it took almost another year for him to actually meet her. Clint was afraid Phil was going to come out of his skin with impatience, but then he finally visited May’s fitness studio and asked her to whip him into shape.

Clint could see the edge of Phil’s mark peeking out from beneath his shirt collar: _Fucking finally._ Apparently May had been impatient to meet him as well.

“You have to come up and see the new house,” Phil continued. “It’s got a lot of space. Way bigger than my old place.”

“Yeah, now that you’ve got May,” Clint said teasingly. May taught like every style of martial arts, and her boss paid her well for her expertise. Not to mention all the tournaments she won.

“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a kept man.” Phil grinned. “Although I’m thinking of starting another animal shelter up there. You don’t really need my help with this one anymore.” Phil used to own the shelter that Clint now ran, but he’d stepped back a couple years ago to move away from the city, letting Clint take over with occasional assistance.

Clint nodded. “You’re always welcome to come bug me and tell me what I’m doing wrong, though.”

Phil chuckled. “Noted. But seriously, you have to see the new house. Especially since you’ll have a kid to meet soon.”

“Totally,” Clint said. “Once me and Nat get a couple days off at the same time, we can make the drive.”

Natasha came back and slid into the seat next to him, and Clint’s heart did that fluttery thing it always did around her. He wondered if that would ever fade. He hoped not.

Phil soon became distracted deciding what to order for dessert, so Clint turned to Natasha and signed, again, _‘You okay?’_  

She nodded and smiled, looking much more honest than last time. _‘I’m sorry I was weird before. I…’_ She paused, searching for the right sign. She could now understand sign language almost as well as he could, but she still had trouble with some words when actually signing.

She sighed and gave up, whispering instead. “I had a dream that he wasn’t gonna like me.”

_‘What? How could he not?’_ He resisted the urge to kiss her forehead, as she’d probably consider that too affectionate for public. She was okay with a certain amount of PDA (especially if it could make Steve uncomfortable), but some things were too intimate. He’d gotten a good idea of where her line was.

He did place his finger gently under her chin to tilt her head up and whispered, “Even if he didn’t, I would have locked us all in this restaurant until you became best friends.”

Natasha chuckled. “I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”

Across the table, Phil had settled his dessert dilemma by deciding they should just get a cannoli from the Italian place down the street.

“Which one?” Natasha asked.

“The one at the end of the block,” he said. “Not that far from the movie theater. Hey!” He exclaimed, as if just remembering something. “You guys seen the new _Star Wars_ yet? It was fantastic.”

“Of course!” Clint said, almost offended that he had to ask. “Isn’t Rey totally a Skywalker?”

“Oh my god.” Natasha shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re going to drag him into this –“

“I’m not trying to drag him into anything!” Clint put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I was just asking –“

“It was a leading question –“

“Was not –“

“There’s no way –“

“That’s it!” Clint threw his hands up. “We’re going to have to see it again. Right now.”

Phil, who’d been watching them with some degree of amusement, shrugged. “Alright with me.”

Natasha rolled her eyes, but her lips were twitching a little so Clint knew she wasn’t really mad.

“Don’t act like you don’t want to see it again.”

Natasha shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, I do.”

“Damn, I wish I had brought my lightsaber,” Phil muttered.

“I have mine at home!” Clint said, then turned to Natasha. “Nat, should we go get it –“

“No,” she said firmly. “You wore your Han Solo costume the first two times, I think that’ll do.”

“Acting like she didn’t wear her Jedi cloak both those times,” Clint stage-whispered to Phil.

“There’s a showing in twenty minutes,” Phil said, searching on his phone.

“Let’s go!” Clint gasped. Natasha rolled her eyes again at his enthusiasm, but he didn’t miss how quickly she slid out of the booth.

 

At the end of the day, when Phil was getting into the car to drive back home, Natasha hugged him and said, “May the force be with you,” instead of goodbye. Clint grinned to himself - it had officially gone perfectly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some trouble with this chapter. How to capture the tension of a not-quite meet the parents day? I hope you enjoyed it tho! 
> 
> Next time: Valentine's Day.


	3. Valentine's Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited while recovering from getting my wisdom teeth out, so let's blame any errors on that. :)

On the morning of Valentine’s Day, Natasha woke up to the smell of burning, the sound of cursing, and cold air at her back where Clint usually slept.

There was enough light streaming in through the window to tell her it wasn’t excessively early, but this was still unusual. Sunday was their only mutual day off and they usually stayed in bed much later. She slid out of bed and went out into the living area to investigate.

Her foggy, barely-awake brain was having trouble processing this situation. She actually stood and stared for a moment. It was surprising enough that Clint had woken up before her; she didn’t need the added surprise of finding him in the kitchen, actually cooking.

Well, attempting to cook. Barely managing not to set fire to the kitchen would be a more accurate description.

The kitchen was still _there,_ which she supposed she should consider a win. But the counters were a mess, pots and pans strewn all around – one small pan had somehow ended up on the couch – and Clint had bits of eggshell in his hair. The burning smell was coming from a tray of little black strips he was pulling from the oven, which may have once been a pack of frozen hash browns.

“Uh, Clint?” Natasha ventured, when he continued cursing at the food as if she weren’t there.

He turned to her and jumped a little, then looked around the kitchen frantically as if searching for a way to hide the evidence. “Okay… this looks bad.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I may have dropped some hot oil onto the stove,” he said, looking down at one of the burners and cringing. She could smell the acrid scent of burnt oil from the other side of the counter. “And I maybe turned the oven up higher than the directions said so the hash browns would cook faster… and they did cook _super_ fast.” He gave her a crooked, guilty grin and then turned back to poke at another pan with a fork. “And these damn eggs just won’t cook.”

Natasha walked around the counter and saw the still completely raw eggs sitting cracked in the pan. Clint looked quite chagrined when she simply reached over and turned the burner on. “Ah.”

She just shook her head; his complete lack of culinary skills was not what surprised her. “What I meant was _why_ are you cooking? You never cook.” Neither of them did, really, but especially not Clint. For good reason.

“Duh!” He gave her a big, goofy grin. “It’s Valentine’s Day! I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed.” Natasha raised an eyebrow and Clint rubbed the back of his neck. “Phil says that’s romantic. Be glad I didn’t take Tony’s advice, or there’d be a robot here to bring it to you.”

Natasha was torn between being irritated and bemused, so she settled for a bit of both when she said, “I thought I told you I didn’t want to celebrate Valentine’s Day.”

“What, not at all?” He asked, sounding surprised.

“No. I told you I hate this holiday.” It came out harsher than she meant it and Clint looked at the burned food insecurely, hand going to the back of his neck again.

“Hey,” she said gently, standing on her tip toes for a kiss. “It was a sweet thought,” she assured him. She looped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him. “But why don’t we just stay in all day and pretend the world doesn’t exist?”

She started backing them up into the living room and he smiled, going along happily as she pushed him onto the couch. That ought to be the end of the Valentine’s Day talk.

 

 

He’d killed almost all the enemy soldiers by now, but he’d been shot so he was hiding behind a crumbling building. He didn’t have time to treat his injury; there were still one or two more out there, so he poked his head around the wall and –

“Bam!” Clint punched the air. “Did you see that?” He turned to grin at Natasha, who was sitting behind him on the couch, reading some giant Russian novel.

She didn’t look up from her book, just said, “Mmhmm.”

“That dude was on the other end of the square,” he continued, knowing full well she was only half listening. “I could have been a sniper, babe, I’m serious.”

This time she did look up, a tiny smirk on her face. “You do have great aim. But you know what I bet you would be even greater at?”

“What?”

“Washing the dishes.”

He groaned. “Ugh, Nat, you’re killing my video game buzz.”

“C’mon, Clint, _you_ made the mess.”

He put his controller down and turned to face her fully. “Okay, I call bullshit. How come whenever you cook that makes you exempt from the dishes, but when I cook it’s my mess?”

“Because the times I cook we actually get to eat the food.”

Okay, that was a fair point. But he still really did not want to do dishes.

“I got an idea.” He picked up two controllers. “How ‘bout we play a round of this game and whoever loses has to do the dishes.”

Natasha eyed him for a moment and he could tell she was considering it. “Fine,” she said after a moment, and Clint nearly cheered, but she held up a finger. “ _But,_ we are not playing that game. It’s a first-person shooter, no one has a chance against your aim. Something else.”

“Pretty much all my X-Box games are first-person shooters, Nat.”

“I’m not talking about the X-Box, Clint.”

And so, that was how Clint ended up digging his Nintendo 64 out from under the TV stand. He hardly used the thing anymore, a little because he preferred newer games and a lot because it was a pain in the ass to switch consoles.

“I hope you know this is a labor of love,” he called from behind the TV. “I hate these damn cords.”

“Oh, stop whining,” Natasha said. “There’s only like three of them.”

“Yeah, you say that from the couch,” he muttered. But he finally got the wires in the right places and walked back around. The controllers wouldn’t reach the couch so they ended up sitting on the floor in front of the TV.

“You ever played before?” Clint asked as Mario Kart loaded. “And don’t try to hustle me,” he added before she could open her mouth. “We’ve already bet, there’s no point.”

Natasha chuckled in a way that told him that was exactly what she’d been planning on doing, but she shrugged and said, “Yeah, in college. For a grown man, Steve is surprisingly into the Mario games.”

“Hey, don’t knock the classics,” Clint said, moving quickly to pick Donkey Kong when the character screen came up. Natasha gave him a look and he said defensively, “I’m always DK.”

She picked Toad, which didn’t surprise him. When he got her to play video games with him she always picked the short character, like she was trying to prove something. He found it rather adorable, though he’d never said so; he did have _some_ sense of self-preservation.

“Not Rainbow Road,” Clint said firmly when they got to that screen.

“Yes Rainbow Road,” Natasha insisted. “C’mon, we want it to be a challenge.” Something in her smile told Clint that he shouldn’t let this happen, but he was powerless to resist her, as always.

Then they were ready to start and he braced himself for the most important game of his life; he did not want to do those goddamn dishes.

Neither, apparently, did Natasha.

“Nat, I swear if you use those turtle shells again – _Nat!_ ”

She just cackled, racing past him while DK spiraled out of control.

“My soulmate is evil,” Clint lamented, pressing down extra hard on the controller as if that would make him go faster. 

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” she said in a sing-song voice, clearly enjoying herself.

“Don’t start gloating yet,” Clint warned. “I’m catching up.”

“We’ll see about that,” she said, entirely too smug. A moment later, just as he was racing up behind her, a banana peel popped up out of her car.

He let out an inhuman sound as Natasha laughed, her Toad crossing the finish line while DK spun right off the track, hurtling into space. 

“Victory!” She yelled.

“I will never accept defeat!” Clint said, tossing his controller down and playfully tackling her, pinning her to the ground. “How ‘bout a wrestling match instead?”

“Nope,” Natasha said from underneath him, her hair spread out prettily around her head. “I won, you get your ass up and do the dishes.”

“Mmm, in a minute,” he muttered, leaning down to kiss her. He was happy that she went along, wrapping her arms around his neck and using her legs to pull him down further.

He had to pull away to tease her. “Winning makes you horny, huh?”

She lightly thwacked him on the head and yanked him back down.

Clint wasn’t sure how long they laid there, lazily making out on the floor. But when they broke apart for air, Natasha’s hands wandered under his shirt and he couldn’t help the words that came out. “Are you sure you don’t want to do anything today?”

“For the third time, Clint, I’m sure,” she said rather severely. “Can we please drop this?”

“Fine,” he snapped, nearly dizzy with the abrupt change in mood. He quickly pushed himself off of her and stood up. He was tempted to stomp into his room and slam the door, but he had hardly gone in his room for a month and the thought depressed him. So he went into the kitchen instead and started doing dishes, trying to look less tense than he felt.

Natasha was looking at him with a blend of confusion and anger. “What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Nothing,” he grunted. He spent much longer than necessary scrubbing a pan and when he looked up Natasha was still sitting on the floor, staring at him quizzically.

He sighed and turned off the sink. “You don’t want to acknowledge Valentine’s Day at all? We’re just going to pretend it’s a normal day?”

“Yes! I thought you understood that,” she said, obviously frustrated.

“Well, clearly I don’t,” he said. “This is like the most important day of the year for soulmates, how could you not want to celebrate it?”

“I told you!” She exclaimed, standing up and coming over to glare at him from across the counter. “I hate this holiday and I don’t see the point of dressing up and going to face the sickening crowds and decorations out there.” She gestured to the window as if the other side of it held some disgusting creatures.

“I’m not saying we have to go crazy like Tony and Pepper, or even go dancing like Steve and Bucky. But we could, I don’t know, grab dinner or go to a park or whatever. At least let me put on a soulmate movie or something. Just _anything_ to mark the day.” Clint was aware his tone was bordering on desperate and he was trying to reign it in.

“But _why?”_ Natasha asked, voice tight and hands gripping the edge of the counter. “It’s just a stupid holiday, why are you pushing so much?”

“Because I thought we were happy!” He yelled. Natasha looked so visibly shocked that he might have laughed if he wasn’t busy holding back a whole lot of emotion. He swallowed and looked down, suddenly unable to look at her anymore. “I thought you were happy.”

“Wha – Clint, of course I’m happy,” she said softly, tone completely changed. “How does not celebrating Valentine’s Day make me unhappy?”

Clint shuffled his feet, debating what exactly to tell her. He didn’t like to go into a lot of detail about his childhood, although Natasha knew more about it than anyone else by now. “Because you’re my soulmate,” he said, still not looking at her. “I want to, like, shout about it all the time, and this is a day you’re actually supposed to do that.” He paused for a moment. “My parents never celebrated it,” he admitted. “I always thought couples who didn’t celebrate it must be unhappy.”

“Oh, Clint.” She came around the counter to stand completely in front of him and grabbed his face in her hands so he’d look at her. “I’m so, so happy, Clint. I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you. I just genuinely, truly don’t like this holiday. I always thought I would never have a soulmate, and I pretended to be okay with that but Valentine’s Day just always threw it in my face.”

“But you do have a soulmate,” Clint said, trying not to sound petulant.

“I do,” she said, smile soft and affectionate. She used her hands on his face to pull him down for a sweet kiss. “And I love you so much. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still carry years of resentment for this dumb holiday. It’s exclusionary. Plus it’s tacky as hell.” He laughed a little and that made her grin. “I want to celebrate my love for you every day, no more or less on this day just because society says we should.”

Clint nodded, relief flooding him as he finally understood.

“I’m in this forever,” she assured him, sliding her hands down to grasp his. “I love you. I loved you even before I knew I was allowed to.”

“I love you, too.” God, did he. His chest felt like it was about to burst with it.

“I just don’t want to celebrate it like all those people out there.” She gestured to the window again, then gave him a saucy smile. “I like it in here with you.”

“I can think of plenty of things for us to do inside,” he said, deepening his voice a little in the way he knew she liked.

“Oh yeah?” She asked teasingly as she backed them up into the wall. “Like Mario Kart?”

“No,” Clint said firmly. “Because you are vicious.”

And then he was pressing her against the wall and her hands were on his ass and neither of them felt much like talking anymore.

 

 

For not leaving the apartment all day, Natasha was feeling pretty tired. She supposed she and Clint had exhausted themselves; she was pleasantly sore and the bed was calling to her even though they hadn’t even had dinner yet. She flopped onto the bed, thinking maybe she’d have a short little nap.

“Tired, Tasha?” Clint asked, bouncing cheerily onto the bed next to her.

She grunted in response. How the hell was he so perky? He had downed one pot of coffee today, but that was normal for him.

“C’mere,” Clint muttered, but didn’t actually require her to move as he scooted down the bed and pulled her feet into his lap, fingers digging into her arches.  

She gasped, part pleasure and part surprise. Usually foot rubs were for after work, when her feet were particularly sore. But she certainly wasn’t about to complain.

She’d have been embarrassed by the noises she was making if he hadn’t heard them all before. At one particularly loud groan he said, “You’re getting me going, babe.” She had her eyes closed so she couldn’t be sure but he was probably kidding.

Still. “Sorry, Clint. I think we found my limit today.”

“Four’s pretty good,” he conceded, and she opened her eyes to see him smiling warmly at her.

She enjoyed her foot massage for a few more moments before the doorbell rang and Clint jumped up. “That’s the food,” he told her.

“What? When did you order food?” Natasha asked.

“When you went to the bathroom after the fourth time,” Clint answered. “Will you go get it?” He was practically bouncing on his feet.

Despite being more than a little wary, she was feeling generous after the foot rub so she got up to grab it, Clint staying behind in their – her? – room. She got the food, which turned out to be from one of the nicer Italian places this side of town, and went to go get Clint from her room.

Only to be blocked by him coming out the door. “Come on, let’s eat in the kitchen,” he said, ushering her away.

“What are you up to?” Natasha asked, allowing him to guide her to the table. “What’s with the fancy food? And we never eat at the table.”

“Yeah, well, it looked lonely,” he said, ignoring her questions. He then insisted that she sit down and let him set everything up. He spread the food out and looked at her with a sly little grin like he thought he was getting away with this. She elected not to say anything about it for the time being; the food smelled way too good. 

“Don’t think this gets you out of dinner tomorrow,” Natasha said, taking a bite of her lasagna. “It’s still your night.”

“Pizza or Chinese?”

Natasha smiled a little; that was more what she was used to. “Surprise me.”

He grinned. “Pizza it is.”

“I literally just told you to surprise me.”

Clint looked a little sheepish, but said, “Maybe I just told you pizza to throw you off so you’d be extra surprised when it’s really Chinese food. So you never really know.”

“I suppose I don’t,” Natasha said indulgently, even though it was definitely going to be pizza. Still, this lasagna was amazing. She could forgive him.

When they finished dinner, Clint stood up and told her, “Stay here,” then dashed into the bedroom and shut the door before she could protest.

Natasha was a little concerned; he’d seemed to respect her desire not to celebrate the holiday, once he understood the real reason. Though she still felt bad about the misunderstanding earlier. God, she hoped he wasn’t about to do something she would hate. The last thing she ever wanted to do was hurt him.

He came back out only moments later with a grin that he seemed to be trying (and failing) to suppress. “Okay, come on.”

“Clint…” she said warningly, but he ignored her and took her hand, leading her through her room and into the bathroom –

Where he’d set up quite the little romantic atmosphere. There were lit candles and tea lights around the sink and counter, and he’d thrown a scarf over the vanity lights which, combined with the candles, cast a warm, dim light around the room. The bathtub was currently filling with water, scattered flower petals floating on the surface.

For a moment her throat closed up, actually touched that Clint, whose romantic urges seemed to be few and far between, had done this for her.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said quietly.

“What?” He said, trying for an innocent look. “I know you like baths. I just wanted to – unrelated to any specific day – surprise you.”

She bit her lip and looked around, warring with herself. On one hand, she still hated this holiday. On the other, it clearly meant a lot more to Clint than it did to her, and maybe she shouldn’t have completely shut down his attempts to celebrate it.

When she didn’t say anything for a while, Clint’s face fell and he said, “Uh, nevermind, you – we don’t have to. Forget it, I’ll clean this up, don’t be mad –“

“Clint,” Natasha said, coming to a decision. “I’m not mad.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I love it.”

And she did, when she let it sink in. This didn’t require her to go anywhere, they weren’t flaunting the fact that she’d found her soulmate to all the people out there who hadn’t. It wasn’t even terribly out of the ordinary, though he’d never drawn her a bath before, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him light a candle without burning himself.  Still, perhaps there was a way they could celebrate Valentine’s Day and make them both happy.

“Are you gonna join me?” She asked with a little smile.

Clint grinned and tugged his shirt off so quickly he was practically a blur. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

With the bath and the ever-enticing sight of him shirtless, she discovered four wasn’t quite their limit.

Pruney-fingered and very satisfied, they lazily dried off and shuffled into the bedroom. Clint flopped right into bed, but Natasha went over to the dresser to slip into a nightshirt and check her phone, seeing that she’d missed a text.

_Steve: So, how was your first Valentine’s Day with Clint? Still boycotting the holiday?_

She glanced over at Clint, still naked and already softly snoring, and smiled.

 _Natasha: It’s growing on me._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: St. Patrick's Day


	4. St. Patrick's Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First thing, you all should check out this awesome [gifset](http://nathanielbarton.tumblr.com/post/140446974345/chapter-3-of-little-audible-links-valentines-day) nathanielbarton made of the last chapter!
> 
> Second, I have never been inside Barney's before so apologies if I portray it wrong.

Last year on St. Patrick’s Day, before she’d even known Clint existed, Natasha had gone out drinking with Steve and Bucky. The years before that, she’d done the same with just Steve (the best was that one year in college she’d convinced him to wear a “kiss me, I’m Irish” shirt). It was a carefree, fun holiday and she’d loved it.

Hard for her to believe now, as she and Clint pushed their way through a sea of drunk, green idiots crowding the sidewalks. Most of them were on their way to one bar or club or another, but some of them seemed to have just parked their parties on the sidewalks. The air smelled even more like alcohol and urine than usual, and Natasha scowled as she narrowly avoided getting beer spilled on her shoes.

How could she have ever liked this holiday?

Of course, she was normally one of those drunk, green idiots. That probably helped. And she normally wasn’t rushing through Manhattan after work to buy a wedding present for Pepper and Tony the day before their wedding.

“I’m sorry,” Clint said, again, as they finally made it into Barney’s. “It honestly just slipped my mind.”

Natasha ignored him, again, waltzing past the fancy glass cases and mannequins and going to the computer to look up the registry. She knew her shoulders were tense but made no effort to relax them, putting all of her concentration into not banging the keyboard too hard as she typed.

It was the _one_ thing she had asked him to do on his day off. He had Mondays off and she didn’t, so she assumed it was perfectly reasonable to ask him to buy Pepper and Tony’s wedding present. He’d agreed readily and nodded when she reminded him that morning. So she expected to come home from work that day to see the purchased wedding present sitting on the counter and Clint ordering pizza.

Instead, she came home to bare counters and him setting up a bunch of takeout containers from their favorite Thai restaurant on the table. He proudly declared that he’d gotten a “bunch of cool shit,” which was Clint speak for no wedding present but an assortment of things they didn’t need, including shamrock-shaped cookie cutters and a small bird cage that was apparently just for decoration (“we can put books or food in it or something. I don’t know, Nat, it just looked cool!”).

Then he presented her with a bouquet of flowers because he’d been thinking of her, which was very sweet. But she’d literally asked him to do _one_ thing and he’d done anything else instead.

She was only slightly miffed at the time, though, because it was only Monday and he kept saying he’d do it the next day. However, now it was Thursday and they didn’t have a next day anymore, so they were forced to go shopping on St. Patrick’s Day.

“Holy shit, look at those prices,” Clint said, gawking at the computer screen. “Three thousand dollars for an ugly little stool?”

“Yeah, well it’s the day before,” she said, voice tight with barely restrained irritation. “All that’s left is the weird, expensive stuff.” Plus, it was Barney’s. The only people she knew who could afford to shop here _were_ Pepper and Tony (and, apparently, most of Pepper and Tony’s friends).

“Oh,” Clint said in a small voice. He cast his eyes down and his shoulders slumped.

Natasha sighed. “At least soulmates get to pair up on gifts, so we only have to buy one.”

As usual, the word ‘soulmates’ made Clint grin, and some of her irritation faded at his goofy expression. 

They ended up picking the cheapest thing left on the registry and navigated their way through the store towards the section it was in. “That is the ugliest vase I’ve ever seen,” Clint said when they found it, earning him an annoyed look from a passing employee.

Natasha had to agree. “We don’t have time to pick out anything else, we’re already running late.”

Clint groaned. “Do we _have_ to go to these things?”

“Do we have to go to the pre-wedding parties for two of our closest friends? Yeah, I’d say so.”

“We’re buying them an expensive ass vase, you’d think that would be enough,” Clint muttered.

“I thought you’d be more excited,” she said. “Tony’s having his at one of the nicest clubs in the city.”

“I’d be excited if you were going, too.”

“Obviously I can’t, as I’ll be at Pepper’s.”

Honestly, she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to go either, but there was no use fussing about it. Pre-wedding parties were an extremely important tradition, at least to Pepper. They used to be about the gathering of each soulmate’s closest friends for some sort of ‘blessing’ the night before the wedding and had pretty much become an excuse to get drunk and have fun; so all in all, pretty fitting that they happened to fall on St. Patrick’s Day (though knowing Tony, he had probably planned it that way on purpose).

So, really, she’d probably have fun. She would just miss spending the day with Steve and Bucky, who were already sending her drunk texts, the latest a picture of them each with a giant bottle of green beer. She wished she and Clint could have been with them. Although, what she really _should_ have been doing tonight was working on ballet routines for her students; she was getting behind. 

“We should just skip them,” Clint whined, as they were still winding through the store trying to find the cashiers. “There’s gonna be so many people there, they probably won’t even notice if we don’t show up.”

Natasha’s irritation was beginning to flare up again, but she endeavored to be patient when she replied, “These parties are too important, Clint. We have to support our friends.”

“Right,” Clint said reluctantly. Then his face lit up. “What if we went to both? We’re friends with both of them, we can go together!”

Natasha made a frustrated sound that was practically a growl. “Jesus, Clint, it’s physically possible for us to spend some time apart!” She snapped. Clint looked taken aback, and even she was surprised by her sudden outburst.

“We spend tons of time apart,” Clint said defensively. “We were apart all day.”

“Yeah, because we were at work,” she hissed.

“Well, we were apart, so…” Clint shrugged, eyebrows raised as if challenging her to contest that. She was about to snap at him again, or possibly grab a ridiculously expensive pillow and throw it at his head, when she looked around and realized they were still in public, surrounded by people who could undoubtedly hear them.

“Do we have to do this here?” She whispered, glaring at him. Clint just shrugged again and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, glowering.

They were silent as they paid for the hideous vase and silent all the way through the walk and subway ride home. Natasha clutched the bag to her chest, trying not to glower at strangers as she resolutely avoided Clint’s eye.

When they finally got home, she was hoping they could drop the subject and forget the whole thing. But the second Clint slammed the door shut behind them, he started it again.

“So you don’t like spending time with me?”

Natasha sighed and rested her head on the entryway wall, reaching deep within herself to find patience. “You know that’s not what I said.” She pronounced every word slowly, with the careful control that any sane person would have taken for the warning it was. 

“But you want to spend more time apart?” Clint continued doggedly.

“Maybe I do,” she snapped, bringing her head off the wall to glare at him, her calm rapidly fraying. “We should be able to have separate plans.”

“We can. We just never do.”

“We do tonight and you don’t want to go,” Natasha reminded him.

“Because it won’t be any fun!” Clint yelled, running his hand through his hair and gripping it at the ends, in a way _she_ would normally have taken for a warning.  

“That’s not the point!” She yelled right back, pushing past him to set the vase down. She was not about to argue with him while holding three hundred dollars’ worth of blown glass. When she turned back he was still standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and eyes tracking her across the room. His relative calm compared to her only threw fuel on the fire. “It’s not always about fun!”

“Is _anything_ allowed to be fun anymore?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“All you’ve been doing it working lately! It’s all about practice, practice, practice –“

“When did this become about my work?”

“When you stopped caring about anything else!”

A tense moment of silence followed. Natasha clenched her fists, getting some shallow satisfaction from letting her nails bite the skin. Something dark and defensive coiled around her heart and she spat her response through clenched teeth.

“Maybe if you could just do one simple thing I asked, I would have time to care about other things.” She gestured grandly to the Barney’s bag on the counter and Clint’s eyes flashed.

“Maybe if you cared about other things I wouldn’t feel the need to try to distract you! Life’s not all about work, Tasha. I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”

“Distracting me doesn’t help anything! God, why is that so hard for you to get? I work so much because it takes me twice as long to get anything done with you around! You need to _leave me alone!”_  

Clint looked hurt at her explosion, momentarily stunned into silence. Natasha hardened herself so she wouldn’t feel sorry for him. She couldn’t let his hurt puppy dog face soften her in every fight.

He sounded more angry than hurt when he responded, anyway. “Well, we live together, Natasha. I don’t know what you expect.”

“Ugh!” She clenched her fists to avoid punching the wall. “I expect you to leave me alone when I’m trying to practice in the living room! I expect to be able to read without you trying to pull me away. I expect us to go to the parties we were invited to on our own!”

His face had closed off by the end of her rant. Whatever he was feeling, he was refusing to let her know. He just said, “Fine, I’ll go to the damn party,” and turned to walk out the door.

“Or you’ll just say you’re going to and then do five other things instead.”

“What do you care?” He said hotly. “At least I won’t be bothering you!”

He slammed the door behind him and Natasha sank against the wall onto the floor.

Her phone buzzed a few minutes later and she reluctantly picked it up, not sure whether she feared or hoped that it was Clint. But it was just another picture of Steve and Bucky, this time with tacky green beads around their necks.

_Bucky: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!_

_Yeah_ , Natasha thought, tilting her head back against the wall.  _Super fucking happy._

 

The party was exactly what Clint expected it to be – out of control, loud enough to fuck with his hearing aids, and full of people he didn’t know. Tony rented out the entire club, because of course he did, so _he_ must know all these people even if Clint didn’t. He looked around a little for Thor but gave up quickly because he couldn’t see much over the massive crowd.

He did spot Tony dancing on top of a table surrounded by a laughing and cheering group of people. All of them were wearing tiny green hats, as were most of the people there, probably strapped to their heads with those itchy strings.  

Clint hoped he could avoid that fate. He probably could because he had been right - there were so many people that Tony didn’t notice he was there and he certainly wouldn’t notice if he left. But he’d promised.

If Natasha were here he’d definitely try to get her to wear one of the hats. She would look adorable in it, even as she scowled at him. _If_ she’d been here. If she even wanted to hang out with him.

It was that line of thought that led him to the bar. There were an insane amount of people around it already, all of them probably grateful that Tony always had an open bar, but Clint managed to squeeze in. 

He threw back two whiskeys right away and already kind of regretted it. Drinking when he was sad had never actually helped. He ought to have learned his lesson from the last time he got drunk. It was before Natasha had discovered her soulmark, before they’d even kissed, only a day after he’d realized he was in love with her. Tony had come over with booze and Natasha went along, so he figured why not?

He didn’t remember half of what he said or did that night, but he did remember feeling unbearably depressed. Hopelessly in love with his roommate, but he had these words on his stomach that (he’d thought) meant she wasn’t his soulmate. 

When he’d woken up the next morning he was on the couch with a blanket thrown over him and Natasha was making them toast in the kitchen. And she’d smiled this little smile at him and he’d thought maybe all hope wasn’t lost after all.

Unfortunately, the brief warm glow that memory gave him didn’t last long when he remembered what Natasha had said earlier. That he needed to leave her alone… that he couldn’t do a simple thing she’d asked him to do… he disappointed her, annoyed her –

“Stop it,” he muttered to himself, giving his head a shake. “Shut up.”

The man sitting on the stool he was standing next to cast him a weary look and left. Clint shrugged and took the seat, ordering another drink and willing himself to stop thinking that way. He knew couples fought sometimes and that it didn’t mean they stopped loving each other.

Although, he’d thought that about Bobbi and Hunter, too; they fought all the time but he’d figured that was just what their relationship was. It never occurred to him they were actually having problems until Phil told him they’d separated and were thinking about divorce.

But this was just _one_ fight, though, so nothing to worry about, right? They’d fought before. Although this was the first one they hadn’t solved right away… He’d never walked away angry before. He’d also never accused her of only caring about work before. Or not caring about _him,_ which was basically what he’d implied. Which, shit, he knew that wasn’t true and he _knew_ that had to have hurt her.

God, what if he’d really screwed this up? Maybe his brother had been right all those years ago, when he’d stabbed him in the shoulder and left. Maybe he really did fuck everything up.

He tossed back another drink and immediately signaled to the nearest bartender for another. She raised an eyebrow and gave him a look that was somewhere between amusement and concern.

“Soulmate troubles?” She asked, taking his glass and pouring more whiskey into it.

“Yeah, she… we had a fight,” Clint said.

“Hey, don’t worry,” the bartender said as she slid his glass back to him. “She’s your soulmate –she’s stuck with you!” She smiled in what was clearly supposed to be a reassuring way before moving onto the next order. Clint felt his heart slide further down towards his stomach. He wondered if that’s what Natasha thought, too.

“Hey,” said the man sitting on the stool next to him. Well, sitting was probably too generous a term; he was more half leaning, half standing next to the stool, resting most of his weight on the bar. “I couldn’t help but overhear. Can I offer you some advice?” His words were slurred and his gaze was unclear.

“Sure,” Clint said gamely.

“My soulmate was mad at me this one time, so you know what I did?” He paused, looking at Clint until he figured out he was supposed to answer.

“No, what did you do?”

“I got a tattoo of his name on my arm.” He rolled up his sleeve to show him. It was the name Ben inside of a heart. “That way, he’d always know that I carry around a reminder that he’s my soulmate.” Then he drank the rest of what was in his glass, getting more of it on his shirt than in his mouth.

That was an interesting idea, Clint supposed, but as that was basically what soulmarks were, he didn’t think Natasha would see the point of it, or that it would do anything for her anger.  Fortunately, drunk guy was soon pried away from the bar by a friend and he didn’t have to respond.

_Un_ fortunately, he had been speaking rather loudly and a string of advice from complete strangers rolled in. To his utter lack of surprise, drunk people at a Tony Stark party on St. Patrick’s Day were not the best at giving advice, although they were disproportionately willing to offer it.

Some of them were funny, like the guy who told him in complete seriousness that he should “serenade his lover with regularity.” Clint had a fun moment imagining Natasha’s face if he just whipped out a guitar and started singing to her.

Music did seem to be a theme, though, as no less than three people suggested he try that thing from the movie where a guy plays music outside the girl’s window. At that point he was mostly just irritated that everyone assumed _he_ was the one who needed to apologize.

_I must just give off that vibe,_ he thought, sighing and taking a gulp of his drink.

Then a large man came up, and he gave off a totally different kind of vibe; rough face, dressed well and aware of it, permanent scowl. “Don’t listen to these idiots,” he told Clint. His voice was as harsh as his face and Clint wondered if that was a product of the alcohol or just who he was. “Whatever you do, don’t apologize first,” the stranger said firmly. “That gives her the control.”

Clint privately thought that this guy had a very unhealthy perspective on relationships, but he just nodded politely because something about this guy made him anxious. It didn’t take him long to place it – take away the nice clothes and he reminded Clint a lot of his father. He almost sagged in relief when the guy left.

The bartender tried to refill his glass and Clint cleared his throat. “Um… just water, please.” 

 

 

Pepper’s party was much smaller and quieter, Natasha imagined, than Tony’s was. Pepper had rented out the rooftop of one of the nicer restaurants in the city and all the guests were seated at one long table, eating and chattering away. It was nice and fancy and Natasha tried not to visibly mope. She actually started to wish she’d taken Clint up on his suggestion of going together because parties were so much more fun with him.

Or maybe they were just more fun when she wasn’t struggling to suppress a roiling mix of anger and regret bubbling together in her stomach, creating a weight in her gut that made it difficult for her to want to socialize. Especially since she hardly knew anyone here.

Her phone buzzed and she checked it under the table to see a picture of Steve and Bucky, this time along with Sam, faces now painted green. The picture was crooked but they were all grinning.

_Bucky: Someone pinted r faces! Cant rember who_

_Steve: Greeeeeeeeeeen_

Natasha was glad they were having fun, though she briefly lamented the fact that she couldn’t talk to them about this. As much as she often preferred to keep things to herself, she had gotten used to being able to talk to people about her problems when she couldn’t solve them. But even if Steve and Bucky weren’t too drunk to be of any help, she wasn’t about to ruin their night.

Same with Pepper. This night was supposed to be about her; she couldn’t burden her with her fight with Clint. Even though Natasha couldn’t keep her mind off of it if she tried. The look on Clint’s face when she’d told him to leave her alone; the angry words he’d snapped back; the completely closed off expression when he left.

God, why did they have to fight on the one night she couldn’t talk to anyone about it?

She briefly contemplated Maria Hill, who was sitting next to her. She had apparently become friends with Pepper since the Halloween party. But she and Natasha weren’t really close enough for that sort of discussion. Besides, she was as drunk as Natasha had ever seen her and busy unloading a problem of her own.

“I mean, I know the wedding is gonna be nice and all,” Maria said quietly, so Pepper wouldn’t overhear, and took another drink. “But I usually find someone to hook up with at weddings. And people are so weird about having sex with someone who already has their soulmark.” Then she glared down at her lap, where Natasha knew her mark was hidden on her inner thigh.

“What’s your mark say?” Natasha asked.

Maria sighed and, probably only because she was drunk, told her, “It says _‘hey, my eyes are up here.’_ ”

Natasha held in a laugh and almost immediately went to text Clint, until she remembered and deflated. “Hey, Maria?” She asked as casually as she could manage.

“Hmm?” Maria asked into her wine glass.

“What would you do if you realized you were maybe, a little bit wrong in a fight?”

“I’ve never been wrong,” Maria answered, as if this fact were as plain as the color of the sky. “So I don’t know.”

“Helpful,” Natasha muttered.

 

A little while later, the giant table had disbursed and people were walking around the gorgeous rooftop, drinking more wine and taking in the view. A band was playing soft music and a couple people had started dancing. Natasha was talking to Pepper by the railing and doing her best to keep her head in the moment, rather than across town.

“I finally got Tony down to a dozen doves, but I had to agree to let him pick our first song.”

Natasha grimaced. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. He won’t tell me. As long as it’s not hard rock or metal I’ll count it as a win.”

Maybe Clint knew; Tony told him things a lot. Natasha reached for her phone to text him before remembering, again.

Dammit, she hated being in a fight.

“What’s wrong?” Pepper, always too observant for her own good, asked.

“Huh?” Natasha realized belatedly that she’d been scowling and rearranged her face into an innocent expression. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Pepper raised a single eyebrow. “Nat.”

Natasha sighed. She considered denying it again, putting up a token resistance. But Pepper could get anything out of anybody. And besides, she could really use some advice. “Clint and I had a fight.”

“Oh no. What about?”

_How I overreacted to him wanting to spend time with me,_ Natasha thought. _How I’ve been stressed at work and I took it out on him._ “Just… me needing space.”

“Ah,” Pepper said with an understanding smile. “I get it. Tony will stay in his damn garage for hours, but when he wants my attention he will not leave me alone. Even while I’m trying to run _his_ company.” She shook her head as though exasperated at the very thought, but there was no missing her fond smile. “I was annoyed at first until I realized why he was like that.”

“Why is that?”

“Tony seems confident, but he’s actually very insecure about whether or not people really like him,” Pepper said, voice a little far away. “I think he was afraid that I would somehow forget about him, or decide that I didn’t love him anymore if I spent too much time away from him.”

Natasha’s chest suddenly felt tight. _Oh god,_ she thought. That was probably not far off from how Clint felt. She knew he still had some fears about things going wrong for them. Some of it was from his own insecurities, and a lot of it was probably from his parents and how unhappy they were, despite being soulmates.

“Fuck,” Natasha said quietly. “Some of the things I said to him…”

“Why don’t you call him?” Pepper suggested gently.

Natasha didn’t even hesitate before pulling out her phone, doing what she’d really wanted to do the entire night.  

But it went straight to voicemail.

“Damn,” she muttered. “He never charges his phone.” She felt a flash of anger at him for unintentionally delaying her apology and almost laughed at the absurdity.  

“You should go find him,” Pepper said.

“What? No, I’m not leaving your party,” Natasha insisted.

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Nat, I’m not gonna hold you hostage when you’re miserable just so you can eat more finger sandwiches. I’ll see you tomorrow.” When Natasha still hesitated, Pepper added, “Besides, you’ve made me neglect my other guests. Go.”

Natasha grinned and hugged the other woman. “You’re the best.”

“I know. Now go make up _._ I can’t have you two in a fight on my wedding day.”

“Will do,” Natasha promised, and all but ran out of the restaurant.

 

 

Clint had left the bar area, to remove himself both from temptation and from the line of weirdo strangers who wanted to regale him with terrible advice. He found a spot towards a corner of the club that seemed the least conspicuous, so he could hide and drink his virgin piña colada in peace (and _damn_ would Nat tease him about that), but there was already someone there.  

The other man there was vaguely familiar and looked friendly enough, so Clint internally shrugged and leaned against the wall next to him. “You trying to escape the madness, too?”

The man laughed a little. “Yes, until Tony finds me and drags me out to make me uncomfortable again.” He sighed. “He means well, but that man is determined for people to have his kind of fun.”

“Yeah.” Clint smirked. “He’s kind of notorious for dragging people kicking and screaming out of their comfort zones.”

“That’s Tony,” the man agreed. “I’m Bruce, by the way.”

“Clint.” He shook Bruce’s hand, trying to figure out why that name rang a bell in the back of his mind. “Bruce as in… Tony’s doctor friend? Dr. Banner?”

Bruce nodded and Clint almost gasped. “Oh my god, you’re the one who found Natasha’s soulmark!”

His eyes widened and he slowly started to grin. “The one with Ivan Yakiv Syndrome?”

“Yeah, that’s Natasha! She’s my soulmate!”

“Wow,” Bruce said, laughing a little, possibly at Clint’s excitement. “Small world. That was a good day. I’ve never seen a condition so rare in my career… It was a good day for you, too, I imagine.”

“You have no idea.”

“I love delivering good news,” Bruce said, gazing off with a happy sigh. “I don’t get to do it often enough.” He turned back to Clint and smiled. “You know she was so happy when she found out she could barely speak? I don’t even think she realized she was crying; she just kept staring at the X-Ray. She actually walked out with it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she wasn’t supposed to take it.”

Clint found himself momentarily speechless, his heart warming as he remembered how happy they both were the night she told him. And how happy they’d been since. 

He hoped she was still that happy. He loved spending all his time with her, could never imagine anywhere else he’d rather be, but apparently she’d been resenting not having her space. How long had she been feeling that way? How long had he been a nuisance?

He let himself pout for a moment, leaning against the wall in not-terribly-awkward silence with Bruce. Then he _finally_ caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd.

“Thor!” He called, and his friend turned and broke out into a huge grin when he saw him.

Clint turned to Bruce and gave him a grateful pat on the shoulder. “I’ll leave you to your corner of peace.” Then he braved the crowd to reach Thor.

“Clint!” Thor greeted him enthusiastically with a hug, even though they’d seen each other at work that day.

“Hey, man. How’s the party so far?”

“Quite enjoyable,” Thor said, in a booming voice even louder than his usual to be heard over the noise. “I have had several of these green beers.” He held up a large, mostly empty, bottle. “Is Natasha with you?”

“Er, no,” Clint answered, trying to sound casual. “She’s at Pepper’s.”

“Ah, my soulmate is also absent,” he said reassuringly, as Clint has apparently failed not to sound depressed. “Jane is catching up on work tonight.”

“Work over a party?”

“Yes, that’s my Jane,” Thor said, clearly fond. “She loves her work. She says she prefers to do it without me there, anyway, as apparently I distract her.”

“Yeah,” Clint said, voice a little tight. “Work can be stressful for her, huh?”

“Quite so,” Thor said. “If she cannot figure out a problem or formula she gets most frustrated. I have to remind her to eat sometimes, though she does not welcome the intrusion.”

“So, you guys spend time apart even at home?”

Thor scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, probably wondering why Clint was asking, but said, “Yes. As I said, she prefers to be alone when she works. It also gives me time to work out.”

Clint actually smiled a little at that. He remembered from when they’d been roommates what an extensive workout routine Thor had. It took _hours,_ which was just insane to him. Though Natasha practiced pretty long, too.

“I guess even soulmates have to spend time apart, don’t they?”

“I believe it is considered healthy,” Thor said. 

Clint sighed. “I think I messed up.”

“I am familiar with this, as well,” Thor said sagely. “Apologies are best. Or groveling, depending on the severity of your crime.”

Clint chuckled and his heart felt a bit lighter, now that he knew space was an actual thing in relationships and not just something Natasha was saying because she had secretly grown tired of him. Or at least, he hoped not.

He was still working on the insecurities, a bit. 

The desire to seek out Natasha right away and apologize was nearly overwhelming, but he had _just_ learned his lesson about giving her space, so he resigned himself to having to wait. Even though he now felt extra guilty because Thor had reminded him how stressed work could make their soulmates, and he hadn’t exactly been helping lighten Natasha’s load lately. All he'd done was try to distract her with other things. He did suggest that she hire another teacher, but she'd practically bristled and told him the studio was  _hers._

He checked his phone, thinking maybe he’d send Natasha a quick text, but of course it was out of battery. He really needed to charge that thing more often.

“Clint! There you are!” Tony yelled, appearing suddenly next to him. The crowd actually _parted_ to let him through. “Where have you been hiding?”

“In this giant green mob of your closest friends.”

“Speaking of green.” Tony took one of the three tiny green hats he was wearing and quickly placed it on Clint’s head, the string snapping into place under his chin. Clint tugged at it, trying in vain to make it less irritating.

“Why aren’t you drinking or dancing or something?” Tony asked, but before Clint could even respond, he continued, “Have you been moping?” Again, he didn’t wait for an answer before turning to Thor. “Has he been moping?”

“Perhaps a bit,” Thor answered, and Clint glared at him. Thor showed no remorse.

“Well, we can’t have that,” Tony declared. He grabbed Clint’s arm and started dragging him away. “C’mon, Legolas. We’re gonna bring the party to you.”

_Fantastic._

The first place she looked was the bar, because Clint tended to mope when he was upset, and the best place to mope in a club was probably near the alcohol. But he wasn’t there. A quick scan around the room revealed nothing except for the fact that he could be two feet in front of her and she’d never know because _how_ did Tony know this many people?  

After a few minutes, it crossed her mind that he may have gone home already.

_Or somewhere else,_ she thought. He probably wouldn’t want to risk her being at home to berate him some more.

She winced inwardly; she loved Clint more than anything or anyone in her life and she’d basically told him that he was annoying. Yes, she needed her space but there were ways to convey that without wounding him and making him believe he bothered her.

_Dammit, Natasha,_ she thought, and wanted to smack herself on the forehead. She knew how insecure Clint could be sometimes. He’d been getting a lot better about it but he still had his moments and she should have been more mindful about that.

She _had_ to find him.

“Can I borrow your chair for a moment?” She asked a man sitting on a bar stool near her.

“Uh – “

“Thanks,” Natasha said, making a shooing motion. The man gave her a puzzled look but vacated his chair and Natasha climbed up onto it, standing far above the height of the party to seek out a particular head of short, messy hair.

She did a slow scan, paying special attention to seating areas, food tables, and corners he could hide from the party in. She was about to give up when a cheering from behind her caught her attention.

There he was, standing in front of a dart board and dazzling people with his aim. As she watched, he threw a bullseye, devastating the people who must have been on the other team but making most of the crowd around him cheer. Tony clapped him on the back and Clint smiled, taking a bow.

And suddenly Natasha felt like the biggest idiot in this whole, drunken city. She’d been chastising Clint earlier for thinking they couldn’t have fun unless they were together, and there she was, thinking he must have been despondent here by himself. Plus there was the added guilt of the fact that she _should_ be happy he was having a good time. But she’d expected that their fight would have affected him the same way it had her.

And... what? She’d waltz in here and his face would light up because he’d been miserable there without here? When apparently _she_ was the miserable one and he’d actually taken her advice and was having fun.

So now she looked ridiculous. She had to get out of there.

She nearly knocked the barstool over in her haste to get down, but she quickly made her way through the crowd, edging carefully towards the exit because the dartboard was near the door.

It would have worked if it weren’t for _someone_ shouting her name. She froze, wondering for a moment if she could ignore him, but then he said it again, closer this time.  

“Natasha!” Thor was grinning, separated from her by a couple people.

She smiled a little back and reluctantly came closer. It was pretty hard to be mad at him, even if he may have just ruined her sneaky exit. “Hey, Thor,” she said. “Listen, I gotta –“

Before she could make up some police excuse, another familiar voice floated through the noise. “Natasha?”

“Over here!” Thor yelled helpfully. And then Clint popped up behind him, looking at her like he wasn’t quite sure she was real. She tried to smile but knew it came out forced. She couldn’t read anything on Clint’s face besides confusion. 

“Nat? Is anything wrong?”

“No, uh –“ She looked rather pointedly at Thor. He backed away, mumbling some excuse she didn’t hear. “Actually, yes,” she said. She realized she was wringing her hands and forced them to her sides, looking Clint in the eye. “ _I_ was wrong. I wanted to apologize.”

Clint looked surprised and he opened his mouth to speak but Natasha held up a hand. “I don’t usually do this, so don’t interrupt or it’s never happening.”

He shut his mouth, a little sparkle of amusement in his eyes.

“I shouldn’t have said… most of what I said. I didn’t mean to imply that you were bothering me, because you weren’t. You don’t. I’ve just been stressed from work lately and alone time can help with that. But needing space doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I should have just… explained that, instead of yelling at you. So, I’m sorry.”

Clint smiled a little ruefully after her speech, hand coming up to fiddle with his hearing aid. “Yeah, I uh… realized some stuff, too. I don’t think you only care about work; that was a dick thing to say. And I’ll give you more space, I didn’t mean to crowd you –“

“You don’t crowd me,” Natasha said quickly, moving closer to finally touch him, now that she knew he wasn’t angry at her anymore. She searched his face as he looked at the ground, remembering what she’d realized earlier about his insecurities and how important it was to combat those.

“Look at me, Clint.” She took his face in her hands and made him look at her because she _needed_ him to understand this. “Every second I spend with you is better than any second without you. Sometimes we just need the seconds without to appreciate that.”

Clint smiled and she felt it against her hands. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry I overreacted.”

“Me too,” she said, sliding her hands down to his shoulders.

“I’ll give you all the alone time you need.”

“I’ve had plenty for today,” she said on a smile, but then her face fell. “But you were in the middle of something. Shit. I’m sorry I ruined it, you were having fun –“

“Hey.” Clint laughed, and this time he was the one to take her face in his hands. “Everything is more fun with you.”

Then he kissed her and she brought her hands up to rest over his where they held her.  

“Oi, lovebirds!” Tony yelled at them from where he was, for some reason, sitting on Thor’s shoulders. “Could you maybe get a room? That isn’t at _my_ pre-wedding party?”

Natasha laughed and rolled her eyes while Clint flicked him off. “Fine!” He yelled up at Tony. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Natasha tucked her arm into his and started to lead him out, half-heartedly dodging his attempts to wrestle a tiny hat onto her head.

When he finally got it on her she scowled at him, and for some reason that made him beam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: April Fool's Day
> 
> (sorry, no Easter :(. The holidays are too close together for me to do both, I had to choose)
> 
> UPDATE: Nathanielbarton made a stunning [gifset](http://nathanielbarton.tumblr.com/post/141261417055/little-audible-links-chapter-4-st-patricks-day) for this chapter!!!


	5. April Fools' Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out this wonderful [gifset](http://nathanielbarton.tumblr.com/post/141261417055/little-audible-links-chapter-4-st-patricks-day) nathanielbarton made for the last chapter!

In Clint’s defense, he had really thought it was just a prank. Not that it really helped him in the guilt department, but if he’d had any doubt in his mind that she was joking he would have already been on his way to the hospital before even responding to the text. But she had been pranking him all day, so when the message first came in it never occurred to him that it was serious.

It started from the moment he woke up that morning.

There was a tickle on his nose, then another on his cheek. Eyes still closed, semi-conscious, he swiped at the wayward sensation, only to find something cold and foamy –

“What the –“

Opening his eyes, he quickly took in the evidence: whipped cream on his hand, whipped cream on his face, and his cackling soulmate standing over him with a feather in her hand.

“April Fools!” She said, grinning madly. “You’ve got a little something on your face.”

Clint was still a bit disoriented, not fully awake, but he just smiled – Natasha’s laughter never failed to make him do so – and licked the whipped cream off his hand. It was never too early for sugar, after all.

A few minutes later, he bit into a plastic egg she gave him, then drank orange Kool-Aid instead of orange juice (which joke’s on her, he fucking loves Kool-Aid). He also fell for it when she told him it was snowing, until he remembered that it had been in the 60’s all week.

And yeah, he really should have stopped falling for her jokes after like, the third or fourth one in a row. But, while he knew Natasha enjoyed all manner of foolishness, she usually limited pranks to when the opportunity arose (or if she felt Steve was “being too serious lately”).

Plus, he’d never really participated in April Fools’ Day before. Hadn’t even known it existed when he was a kid (being “home-schooled,” technically, by his mother, he didn’t get any social interaction at school. Or much at all, really). And they hadn’t celebrated it in the circus, either; there’d been jokes and pranks pretty much on a daily basis (some pretty unfunny ones, too, he wasn’t sure why the clowns were even hired), so a holiday dedicated to it wasn’t really that special. And no one he knew now participated in it either, except that one time Thor had tried convince him he’d gotten his nose pierced (the “piercing” fell out almost immediately. And Thor was almost as bad a liar as Steve).

He should have guessed Natasha would be this into it, though. Even when she looked exhausted.

“What time did you get up this morning?” He asked, biting into a real piece of toast.

“Not that early.” Natasha shrugged. She was still in her workout gear, the hair around her forehead sweaty and cheeks flushed. It would actually have been a really hot look, Clint thought, if it weren’t for the circles under her eyes and the droop in her posture.

“Nat.” Clint sighed.

“I’m _fine,_ Clint,” Natasha insisted. “There’s just a lot of new students coming in at different levels and I have to come up with –“

“Routines for them all,” Clint finished, well used to her speech by now. “I know. Which is why –“

“I don’t need to hire another teacher.”

“It would sure help,” he said, even though they both sounded like broken records by this point. “You’d be able to take on all these new students you keep having to turn down. Besides, I’m worried about you. You’re gonna pass out or something one of these days.”

Natasha laughed, not unkindly. “I’m not going to pass out, Clint. I’ve worked way harder on way less sleep before, trust me.” She leaned against him, resting her chin on his chest and smiling up. “I’m not some fragile flower.”

“Believe me, babe, I know,” he said. In the past, that endearment would have gotten him a sharp pinch, even though she’d told him late one night that she actually didn’t mind. Now, she just tilted her head up and he planted a kiss on her smiling lips. “I just worry.”

“Well, I worry about you getting to work on time,” she said, pulling away. Then she furrowed her brow at his chest. “What’s that?” She asked, pointing. He looked down, only to feel her finger come up from his chest to flick his nose.

“You’re so _easy._ ”

“Only for you, Tasha.”

 

 

It didn’t stop when he got to work. She texted him every hour when she was between students. He finally stopped falling for them after she sent him that jump scare video of a peaceful, winding road – and then a zombie popping up out of nowhere and screaming.

He told Natasha that it didn’t scare him, but she just sent back a winky face, as if she knew that he’d actually shrieked so loud the dogs started barking again, pissing Kate off because she’d just gotten them to calm down.

It pissed her off even more when he showed Thor, who had a similar reaction to his own.

But even though he’d stopped believing Natasha by that point, he still usually found her jokes funny. Which was why he was confused by the text when it came in.

_Natasha: Hey, is this Natasha’s soulmate? Something’s wrong, you gotta get over here_

It was hands down her weirdest opening yet, and he tried to figure out where she was going with it but came up empty.

_Clint: … what’s the punchline?_

Then Bandit, one of their aggressive dogs, started snapping at a Shepherd when Kate took him out of his cage, sending the entire dog room into a frenzy again. Clint ran to help, the text message flying from his mind.

When he came back to his phone some time later, after bribing the dogs with bones to stay quiet and helping Thor give an batch of irate kittens their flea medicine, he found several more texts.

_Natasha: What? Listen, she collapsed bc of something with her leg_

_Natasha: Wanda’s freaking, she called an ambulance_

Then a missed call from her and one from Steve a few minutes later, along with a text.

_Steve: Did you get Pietro’s msg? Call me back_

And that’s when Clint’s heart leapt into his throat. Even if Natasha _might_ go this far in a joke, he didn’t think Steve would.

He fumbled with his phone trying to call him back, his fingers trembling and his breath coming fast, holding onto a dim hope that it wasn’t real.

_“Clint?”_

“Please tell me this is a joke,” Clint said, holding the phone tight against his ear as if that would make Steve’s answer come faster.

 _“No, it’s serious.”_ Steve sounded worried, like his breath was doing the same thing Clint’s was. His heart dropped from a lump in his throat to a pit in his stomach and he barely heard Steve’s next words. _“One of Nat’s students called me from her phone, said you didn’t answer and that he was on his way to the hospital with her. They’re probably there by now. Me and Bucky are on our way, too.”_

“Fuck. _Fuck._ ” Clint’s voice shook around the curse. “I’m leaving right now!”

He almost impaled his leg on the desk leaping over it. He hardly remembered to yell that he was leaving and nearly bowled over a couple in the parking lot.

When he _finally_ got to the hospital he ran into the ER and spotted Steve and Bucky in the giant waiting room, along with a couple of teenagers who must have been Wanda and Pietro.

He was so out of breath with exertion and worry by the time he reached them that he couldn’t even speak. Luckily, Steve didn’t need to be asked.

“She’s okay,” he said quickly.

“We haven’t seen her, though,” Bucky added. “They said they’d come and tell us when we could.”

The twins seemed anxious. Wanda was worrying her nail between her teeth and Pietro was pacing a little bit around them.

“We came here with her in the ambulance but they wouldn’t let us go back,” Wanda said when he looked at her, jerking her head towards the double doors that led to the hospital proper. “But she was okay besides the pain. And the brief unconsciousness.”

“Brief unconsciousness,” Clint repeated, dumbfounded. His soulmate had been _unconscious_ and in pain and he’d been holding kittens.

“So, now you care?” Pietro asked, arms crossed over his chest.

“Pietro,” Wanda hissed.

“Well, he didn’t seem too concerned when I texted him.”

“I thought it was a prank,” Clint said, anguished. But otherwise he didn’t bother to defend himself; what defense was there? He should have never thought it wasn’t real, not when it was about her health.

“I’m sure he feels guilty enough,” Wanda said to her brother, who shrugged but didn’t look very mollified. Clint couldn’t say he blamed him.

“Natasha is really into April Fools’ Day,” Bucky explained to the twins.

Steve agreed. “She probably hasn’t said a serious thing all day.” He turned to Clint. “She wake you up with the shaving cream in the hand thing?”

Clint managed a small laugh. “Whipped cream, actually.”

Steve shook his head. “Blatant favoritism.”

Once he’d gathered himself enough to form more coherent thoughts, Clint asked the twins what happened.

“She was showing us a développé,” Pietro said. At Clint’s blank look, he rolled his eyes and demonstrated, lifting his leg much higher than Clint would have thought possible.

“With her leg injury?” Clint asked, incredulous. Natasha had badly injured her leg when she was a child, permanently damaging the muscles, and as a result she could no longer do _exactly_ the kind of move she’d apparently done.

Wanda nodded, casting worried eyes back towards the double doors. “She was in a lot of pain,” she said, making Clint’s heart constrict again.

“How long has it been?” He asked.

“Almost an hour,” Bucky answered. “She really ought to be done by now.”

 _An hour?_ Clint thought, horrified. Natasha had been alone in the hospital for an _hour_?

He raced for the front desk without another word, accosting the first employee he saw who wasn’t already talking to someone.

“Natasha Romanoff,” he said with no preface. “Where is she?” The woman arched an eyebrow, so he added a fairly desperate, “Please.”

She sighed and clicked at a computer. “Relation?”

“Soulmate,” he said. “We met at a Halloween party. She has a condition, her soulmark is under the skin of her arm but it says _‘Please let it be you.’_ ”

The woman looked stunned. “Huh. Yeah, that’s what it says here.” She indicated the computer. “Alright. Only the soulmate for now. Others can go in if she gives permission.” She said, glancing at Steve and the rest of them. Clint nodded and she looked back at the computer. “Room 107. Down that hall.” She pointed to the double doors and Clint dashed off, calling over to the others that he’d be back to get them. 

This wasn’t the first time he’d hurried through a hospital looking for Natasha. On Christmas Eve last year, they had kissed under the mistletoe and then she’d run out into the cold, Pepper chasing after her. When neither of them had come back after a couple minutes, Clint begged Tony to call Pepper.

He’d never forget the way he felt when Pepper had said they were on their way to the hospital, Natasha with a bleeding head injury. Kind of a similar feeling to now, actually, as he sped down the halls to get to her room (although last time he’d needed Tony to call ahead and ask Dr. Banner to get him Natasha’s room number, which had actually taken _less_ time than asking at the front desk).

It was with considerably more guilt, though probably the same amount of worry, that he entered her room this time.

He somehow felt even guiltier at the sight of her laying in the hospital bed, hooked up to an IV with her entire leg in a splint.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, at her side in an instant. He at least didn’t have to feel any guilt about kissing her this time.

“Why are you sorry?” She asked, a little breathlessly, when they parted.

He barely registered the question, busy trying to assuage his concern by staring at her. Despite the fact that her leg was in a splint, he fixated on the IV. “Are you okay? Why do you need that?”

Her lips curled as she glared at the needle in her skin. “I’m mostly fine, just… apparently, though my leg was the reason I collapsed, I was borderline dehydrated. I didn’t really eat or drink anything all day. Which is why I passed out. Briefly.”

It was only the fact that she was hurt, and that she already looked guilty, that kept Clint from throwing a fit about that. As it was, he just gave her a look of disbelief. _“Nat.”_

“I know, I know.”

“But, you’re okay? I mean, besides…” He waved his hand vaguely at her body.

“Yeah. Dr. Banner said he was only putting this on as a precaution,” she said of her splint. “I can take it off tomorrow. And I can leave as soon as all this fluid is in me.” She flicked the IV stand. “Now, why were you sorry?”

“For being so late.” The guilt surged again, though it was thankfully less now that he knew she was okay. “Your students texted me but I thought it was a prank.”

“Oh, Clint.” She leaned her head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “I really fucked this day up, didn’t I?”

“No, you… well, besides doing some crazy leg lifty move. That was a stupid ass idea.”

Natasha looked so mad at herself that he couldn’t even yell at her. He wondered if this was how she felt when he did dumb stuff, like blindfolded archery in the living room.  

“I know,” she said quietly. “I just wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry I worried you.”

“You know why you weren’t thinking?”

Natasha groaned. “Clint –“

“Because you’re so tired,” he continued doggedly, but gently, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and bending down to lean his forehead against hers. “Because you’ve been working so hard.”

He heard her sigh. “You’re right.”

Clint pulled away, giving her his most comically shocked face. “Was that painful?”

“Oh, hush.”

“So, will you admit that you need to hire some help?”

“I’ll think about it,” she said reluctantly.

Good enough. “And you’ll take a couple days off?”

“Clint –“

“I’m sure the doctor is going to tell you to take it easy, anyway.”

Natasha held his gaze for a moment, probably trying to determine if she should fight him on this, before she let out a long breath, shoulders slumping. “Yeah, he already did.”

“Also, there’s something I should tell you,” he said. “When Pietro couldn’t get a hold of me, he kind of… freaked out and called like everyone in your contacts.” Her eyes widened, and he continued. “Pepper and Tony are flying back from their honeymoon –“

“What?!” Natasha sat up as much as she could, looking horrified. “For _this?_ Shit, you have to call them and tell them to turn back around!”

At this point, Clint couldn’t keep it in anymore and burst out laughing.

Realization slowly dawned on Natasha’s face. “You _asshole.”_ He honestly couldn’t tell if she was more proud or irritated. “You got me.”

“April Fools,” Clint said cheekily and Natasha shook her head, the corner of her mouth quirking up with amusement she couldn’t hide.

“Seriously, though, he did call Steve. So he and Bucky are out there, too, and they probably want to yell at you for worrying them.”

“Think if I act pathetic enough they’ll take pity on me?”

“Not a chance.” Clint grinned.

“Sadist,” she muttered affectionately. “Alright. Go get them.”

He glanced down at her leg again, swallowing the lump in his throat and remembering that she was _fine_ now. Or she would be. “I love you,” he said, and watched a little smile bloom across Natasha’s face.

“I love you, too.”

He leaned down to kiss her forehead. “But for the record, I hate this fucking holiday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know next to nothing about ballet and medical stuff. I tried to keep it vague, but I hope I didn't say anything too egregious. 
> 
> Next time: 4th of July


	6. Fourth of July

Natasha had been wary of getting a dog. It was bound to happen eventually; she knew Clint would get a cat for her if she asked. She imagined there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for her, actually, and she for him. So she figured she probably wasn’t going to deny him a dog if he asked.  

But what really convinced her was the fact that he was apparently willing to deny _himself_ one… for her.

She sometimes visited Clint at the shelter on Saturdays. One day, she went to visit him and saw him with one of the new dogs – a yellow mutt named Lucky, a name she could only assume was ironic considering he’d been hit by a car.  

When she came in the door, Clint was half inside Lucky’s cage, petting the dog as he lay on his side, cone around his head to prevent him from biting his stitches. She could tell right away that Clint had bonded with this dog, and expected him to ask if they could adopt him.

Days went by, then weeks, and he never asked. He talked often about how much he liked the dog, how he wished someone could see past his appearance and adopt him so he could go to a good home. He even had pictures of him on his phone. But he never asked. As time went on, Natasha realized he wasn’t going to, because he believed she wouldn’t want to.

So she asked him instead, and a delighted Clint brought Lucky home the next day.

She’d been trying not to regret it ever since.

It wasn’t that she disliked dogs. She liked them… from a distance. When she wasn’t responsible for their well-being. Or for training them.

“Sit. Sit. _Sit,_ Lucky. No, that’s still standing. Sit.”

She could hear Clint before she entered the living room, and no matter how many times he repeated the command (she’d long since stopped counting), he never seemed to get frustrated. Natasha tended to give up after one try.

“Still no luck?” She asked, and Clint shook his head. He was standing holding a treat over the dog, who was also stubbornly standing.

“No luck with Lucky,” he said, grinning at his own little joke. “Sit. Sit.”

“Did you try the trick Thor showed us?”

“Yeah, watch.” Clint held the treat up and slowly brought it directly over Lucky’s head, moving it behind him –

Then Lucky sprang up and grabbed the treat out of his hand.

Natasha sighed but Clint laughed, and Lucky stood there wagging his tail.

“He is the most stubborn dog I’ve ever met,” Clint said affectionately, almost like he was proud. Which, Natasha figured, he probably was. “Aren’t you, boy?” He leaned down and started baby-talking the dog. “Who’s a stubborn boy? You are! You may be the worst at sitting but you’re the best at jumping on people, aren’t you? Yes you are!”

He must have caught sight of Natasha’s glare, because he straightened up and cleared his throat. “Which we have to teach him not to do, of course. You look beautiful, Nat, is that a new… dress?” He came over and kissed her.  

“It’s a cover-up for my bathing suit. And yes, we do have to train Lucky not to jump on people,” she said, and Clint nodded, clearly trying to look serious. “And there will be plenty of opportunities at the party today because we have to keep him from jumping on everyone.”

“I know, I know,” Clint said. “I’m sure Tony would find it funny, though.”

“I wouldn’t… and I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” Natasha said, looking at Lucky. He was sitting _now_ , of course, when no one had asked him to. “There’s going to be a lot of people there.”

“Aaw, Nat, c’mon. His leg is _finally_ healed, it’ll be his first real outing!” He stuck out his lower lip. “Please? He has to come. Right, Lucky?”

Natasha, faced with two puppy-dog faces, one of them on an actual dog, couldn’t resist.

“Fine,” she said, and Clint nearly cheered, but she held up a finger in warning. “But you cannot laugh when he jumps on people. It only encourages him.”

“I won’t, I promise,” Clint said solemnly. But then he winked at Lucky, so Natasha wasn’t exactly holding her breath.

 

When Tony found out what day Steve’s birthday was, he sang the first two verses of ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ at the top of his lungs. But after that, he offered to merge his Fourth of July party with Steve and Bucky’s. And since Tony had a giant deck halfway up his building, with a yard and a pool and chefs, Natasha could see why they agreed. Plus, as Tony pointed out, Steve and Bucky had gotten to host the New Year’s party. It was only fair.

Natasha knew another reason Bucky had agreed, though – he was planning to propose to Steve today. And a private party on a deck overlooking the city had a bit more ambiance than their own dirty rooftop.

As soon as Natasha and Clint arrived on the deck, she noticed three things: one, that her apartment could fit inside this deck at least five times; two, of all the decorations, the huge banner hung across the wall fencing in the deck that said ‘Happy Birthday Steve + USA’ was the best; and three, that the birthday boy and his soulmate were running towards them, grinning ear to ear.  

“Nat! Clint!” Steve practically tackled her in a hug, while Bucky greeted Clint a little more calmly. Lucky barked and tried to jump on Bucky.

“Steve, you know I love you, too,” Natasha said from where she was being squeezed to within an inch of her life. “But we just saw you three days ago.”

“I know, but guess what?” Steve finally let her go, and before she had a chance to guess, he pulled the necklace he was wearing out from under his shirt and showed her a simple, beautiful gold ring around it.

Natasha couldn’t quite help it – she screamed, and even though he’d just let her go, she wrapped Steve in another hug. Lucky barked again, not used to all this excitement, but Natasha couldn’t bring herself to try to calm him at the moment. 

“Congratulations!” She squeezed him tight while Clint congratulated Bucky (again, slightly more calmly).

“As for you.” Natasha pointed at Bucky. Then she punched him in the shoulder. “You couldn’t even wait until I got here?”

“Ow, gees,” Bucky said, but he was laughing. “Sorry, sorry.”

“He couldn’t even wait until today,” Steve said, going to his soulmate – and now fiancé – and tucking himself under his arm.

“Huh?” Clint looked between the three of them, confused.

“Bucky told me he was planning on proposing _today,_ " Natasha informed him.

“I was,” Bucky said. “But I was just so excited, you know? And Stevie can always tell when there’s something on my mind, so I just ended up blurting it out.”

Steve didn’t seem like he minded the impromptu proposal, judging from the way he was beaming at Bucky. Then Lucky, perhaps not wanting to be left out of the excitement, jumped up onto Steve and started barking in his face.

“Lucky, no!” Natasha said, pulling him off Steve. Clint was giggling. “Clint, no.”

“What? He’s just happy for them,” he said, then grinned at Steve and Bucky. “So, tell us the story! Where were you, how did it happen?”

Steve blushed and Bucky smirked, and Natasha knew exactly what that combination meant. “Oh god, you proposed in bed?”

This made Clint burst into giggles again, and Bucky’s smirk grew. “Technically, it was the kitchen table.”

“Have you ever had sex in an actual bed?”

“Sure, remember the handcuff incident?”

“Ugh.” Natasha shuddered.

“Anyway,” Bucky said, talking over Clint’s laughing fit. “We gotta go tell other people. We couldn’t tell anyone until you knew.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, slipping the ring off his necklace and onto his finger. “That’s why I had to hide it. My best friend had to be the first to know.”

Natasha hugged him again, and if her smile was a little watery, she wasn’t about to acknowledge it. “Congratulations again. Oh, and happy birthday.”

Steve gave her an extra squeeze. “Thanks,” he said, then he and Bucky walked off.

Clint put his arm around her, because he obviously noticed her possibly-a-little-watery smile. Her best friend getting married, yet still considering her… she knew that when Clint proposed, Steve would be the first to know too.

 _If,_ she reminded herself, feeling a small jolt of panic. _If he proposes. Not all soulmates get married._ But the panic faded before she even really felt it. Clint was her soulmate, in more than just the words on (or under) their skin. Married or not, she wasn’t going anywhere.

She pulled him down for a kiss, and Clint’s smile was a little dreamy.

“What was that for?” He asked.

Natasha shrugged a shoulder. “Just… I don’t think I’d have been able to be so happy for Steve before I met you. That’s all.” Before sappy Clint could make an appearance, she tugged him farther onto the deck. “C’mon, we’ve got hosts to greet.”

Pepper and Tony were on the other side of the deck. They had to pass by the pool and a line of grills that took up the entire wall to get to them, not to mention the groups of people they had to weave in and out of.

“Officially the biggest Fourth of July party I’ve ever been to,” Natasha noted.

“Maybe next year Tony’ll take us on his boat,” Clint said. “It’s a little bit smaller, but boat!”

Lucky barked and Clint said, “That’s right,” as though the dog was agreeing with him.  

Pepper and Tony caught sight of them as they approached and broke off their conversation with a group of people who were dressed way too formally for a pool party.

Pepper noticed her looking at them. “Yeah, I know. _Someone -”_ she shot a glare at Tony, “- forgot to tell the board that this was an informal event.”

“It’s on a deck! There’s a pool!” Tony defended himself. “How does it not go without saying?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Pepper said as she hugged Natasha in greeting. “I don’t like most of them anyway. Thank you two for coming.”

“Thanks for hosting,” Natasha said. “Especially since you don’t know some of the people here.”

“Eh,” Tony said with a shrug. “Since you and Clint are forcing me and Steve to get along, we might as well run with it.”

“That’s the spirit.” Clint clapped his friend on the shoulder.

“So Natasha, how’s work? Is the new ballet teacher still working out?” Pepper asked, and Natasha could _feel_ Clint’s smug grin forming without even looking at him.

“Yes,” she admitted grudgingly. “She’s good.”

“Aaaaaand?” Clint prompted. “She’s made your life a lot easier? And you’re glad you listened to Clint and hired another teacher?”

Natasha sighed, giving Clint a look that did nothing to quell his smugness. Tony seemed amused.

“She’s actually very nice,” Natasha confessed. “She’s new in the city. I was thinking of inviting her to one of our girls’ days.”

“I’m all for it,” Pepper said. “But you know Maria isn’t fond of new people.”

“I’ll introduce the idea to her gradually,” Natasha said. “Over the next… couple of months.”

“It might just take that long,” Pepper said.

Suddenly, Lucky started barking and tried to take off, running and forcing Tony and Pepper to take a step back and causing Clint to lurch forward before re-gaining control of the leash.

“Whoa, Lucky! Stop!” Clint held the leash tighter and Natasha looked up to see what Lucky was trying to get to.

Ah. There was another dog, playing with some toys in the grass by the corner of the deck.

“That’s Rhodey’s dog, Sophie,” Tony said. “It’s totally fenced in, you know, you can let Lucky off the leash to go play.”

“What do you think?” Clint asked her eagerly. “He got along with the other dogs at the shelter. I mean, he never actually played with them, but he never got aggressive, either.” Clint was practically bouncing up and down, hopeful glint in his eyes like he got when he really wanted something.  

Natasha was reluctant, but he clearly wanted Lucky to have a friend. “Okay, let’s go introduce him and see.”

Clint grinned, and they walked Lucky over to Sophie, keeping him on the leash while the two dogs sniffed each other.

“Sophie’s friendly,” Rhodey said, which Natasha could see; she and Lucky were already playfully lunging at each other.

“Lucky’s just never had a friend before,” Clint said. “That we know of.”

“Don’t worry,” Rhodey told them as they unhooked the leash from Lucky’s collar and he excitedly ran off playing. “I’m hanging around here, I’ll keep an eye on them.”

“Thanks,” Clint said. Then he turned to Natasha. “Now can we go swimming?”

“We’ve got other people to say hi to.”

“But there’s people in the pool!” Clint said imploringly, pointing. “Like Thor and Jane! I have to say hi to them.”

“Well, I guess you don’t have to come –“

“Woo!” Clint shouted, kissed her on the cheek, and ran towards the pool, stripping off his shirt as he went.

Natasha took a moment to appreciate his back and shoulder muscles as he ran, as well as the fact that his Stark-designed hearing aids were waterproof; otherwise he’d probably go through a pair a week, losing them every time he forgot to take them off to shower. Then she headed over to where Maria Hill was sitting at a table under an umbrella.  

“Nice suit,” Natasha said.

Maria scowled down at her bathing suit bottoms. “I have to wear shorts to cover up my mark.”

“I see you’re still chipper about that.”

Maria dropped her sunglasses down her nose just so she could show Natasha her dramatic eye-roll. “I’ve had the thing for seven months. I just want to meet my stupid soulmate already and get it over with.”

Natasha held back a sigh and sat down next to Maria, because apparently she was going to be helpful ( _nosy,_ said a Bucky-like voice in her head, which she ignored). “Okay. I used to be negative about soulmates because I didn’t think I had one. So why are you so down on them?”

Maria blew out a long breath. “I just don’t trust the universe, or God, or Zeus, or whatever it is to send me someone perfect to be with.”

“I don’t think the universe _sends_ us our soulmates,” Natasha said thoughtfully. “I think it just gives us our marks to let us know when they’re here. And that we’d probably have ended up together without them anyway.”

Maria stared at her, and for a moment Natasha thought she’d actually convinced her. Then Maria shook her head and said, “Clint’s really made you soft.”

Natasha couldn’t help but agree.

As if saying his name had summoned him, Clint swam up to the edge of the pool by where she and Maria sat and waved her in. “C’mon, Nat! Thor and Jane want to play chicken fight, and Jane doesn’t believe I can sit on your shoulders.”

Natasha glanced back to check on Lucky, who was still playing happily with Rhodey and his dog, then to Maria, who waved her on.

Natasha stood up and stripped off her cover-up. “Tell Jane that if you’re sitting on my shoulders, she has to get Thor on hers.”

Then she ran and jumped in, making sure to splash Clint as much as possible.

 

They won chicken fight, but only because of Natasha. Clint had been far too distracted to be of any help. He had seen Natasha naked like, more than a hundred times at this point, but somehow seeing her in a bikini was different.

Maybe because they were in public and he had to wait until they got home to rip it off her.

He had just started to get his thoughts under control when she decided to get out of the pool. And she didn’t even use the _steps._ That would have been bad enough. No, she pulled herself up over the edge, water sliding down her body like she was a goddamn mermaid or something. Clint had to actively try not to drool.

Then he noticed where she was going – to drag Lucky away from the food table – and he cringed. Lucky was in trouble, which actually meant that Clint was in trouble.

He put on his best innocent face when Natasha came back, and she stood over him glaring. “This is your fault, you know,” she said. She sat down on the edge of the pool and dipped her legs in. She let him nudge between them and rest his arms on her thighs, so she probably wasn’t that mad. “You let Lucky on the table at home,” she continued sternly.

“Not when there’s food on it,” Clint pointed out, still smiling innocently. “You’re so pretty.” He reached up and stroked her hair, which was already starting to regain the curl it had lost when it got wet.

Natasha refused to be distracted, not that he really expected that to work. “We need to keep him away from all tables, then, at least until he learns not to be on the ones with food.”

“Yes, dear,” Clint said, grinning when Natasha ruffled his hair, making it stick up and probably look ridiculous.

“Okay, Nat,” Steve said, coming to stand next to her at the edge of the pool. “You are not allowed to tease me and Bucky about PDA anymore. You two are gross.” He waved his hand between the two of them, Clint resting his head and arms across Natasha’s thighs, Natasha’s hand having gone from ruffling to stroking his hair.

“Oh, we could do so much worse,” Natasha said, then leaned down to capture Clint’s lips in a kiss _way_ dirtier than she usually allowed in public.

Dimly, Clint heard Steve make a gagging noise and walk away, but he didn’t have time to focus on much else because Natasha was kissing him in a pool and it was official: they were going to spend the rest of their summer right there on Tony’s deck.

They were both out of breath by the time she pulled away.

“I’m hungry,” she panted.  

“Huh?” He had no idea how she could switch topics so quickly - especially when the previous topic had been her tongue in his mouth.

“Let’s go get food,” she said, nudging him off of her legs so she could stand up.

“Uh, you go ahead,” Clint said. “I’ll be along in a minute, I just can’t… get out of the pool yet.”

Natasha’s little smile did _not_ help his situation. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding sincere at all, even though it was her fault. Then she went towards the long food table and Clint tried very hard ( _ha, pun_ ) to think unsexy thoughts and not look at Natasha at all.

Once he calmed down (thinking about the cat that vomited on him last week did the trick), he joined Natasha at the loaded buffet table.

“Alright, hotdogs!” Clint exclaimed, loading up his plate with them.

Natasha tsk-ed, taking one burger and zero hotdogs, and turned to Tony, who was in line in front of her. “I’m surprised you’re serving something as plebian as hotdogs.”

“Don’t worry,” Tony said. “They’re the most expensive hotdogs my chefs could find. Plus of course turkey legs, corn on the cob, baked beans – you know, ‘Merica!”

“And by ‘ _Merica_ ,” Clint said. “I assume you mean Steve put together the menu?”

Tony shrugged. “Little of this, little of that. Rogers said it’s not a proper Fourth unless there’s a barbeque and hey, it’s his birthday.”

“The only thing required for the perfect Fourth of July is watching _National Treasure_ ,” Clint declared. “Me and Nat watched both this morning.” Natasha rolled her eyes. “Hey, you liked them!”

“Maybe the first one,” Natasha admitted. “It was charming in its zeal.”

“It is un-American not to eat a hotdog on the Fourth of July, though,” Clint told her, putting one on her plate.

“I think Lucky wants it,” Natasha said, side-eyeing the dog, who’d been trailing after them through the entire line. 

“Can I give it to him?” Clint asked, but when Natasha’s response was a glare, he figured the answer was no.  

“Oh, I know that look,” Tony said as the two of them trailed behind Natasha towards a table. “Pepper looks at me the same way when I bring robots into the dining room.”

They sat down at Thor and Jane’s table. Thor’s plate was piled high enough that Clint wasn’t sure how it wasn’t falling over

“You know you’re allowed to go back for seconds, right?”

Thor smiled good-naturedly. “I hope you did not let these two near the grills, Tony,” he said, gesturing to Clint and Natasha. “They are disasters.”

“I resent that,” Natasha said. “At most I’m apathetic. This one is the destroyer of kitchens.” She hooked her thumb at Clint.

“Steve and Bucky have been threatening to teach us to cook,” he said.

“Well, we have dinner with them once a week,” Natasha said. “I think they’re just tired of us bringing pizza every time it’s our turn to cook.”

“Hey, I made grilled cheese that one time,” Clint defended himself. The best grilled cheeses he’d ever made, in his opinion. He even put garlic powder and parmesan on them.

He saw Natasha and Jane exchange an amused look, but then Natasha patted him on the arm and said, “Yes, you did, honey.” And even though she was just being indulgent, Clint glowed, because she didn’t use pet names often.

He wondered if this was tacit permission to call her ‘babe’ in public… best not to try.

 

A while later, Clint was back in the pool while Natasha and Pepper lounged on chairs by the edge, catching the last rays of sun before it set. He only looked over at Natasha every minute or so – down from every 10 seconds, so he thought he was doing pretty good.

He looked over again as she was applying sunscreen to her legs. He hadn’t been allowed to help her put on the sunscreen this time, unlike before they left when he’d gotten to apply it to her whole body…

It was probably for the best; the activities that followed would not have been appropriate for a public setting.

Clint was getting bored swimming by himself though, as Thor and Jane had vacated the pool, too, so he swam up to the edge by Natasha.

“Nataaaasha,” he sing-songed her name, and she lifted her head to raise an eyebrow at him. “Come swimming.”

“I’ve already been swimming. I’m sunning.”

“Why?” Clint asked. “You put on so much sunscreen, there’s no way you’ll tan.”

“I’m not trying to tan,” Natasha said patiently. “I just like soaking up the sun. And I couldn’t tan even without the sunscreen. All I do is burn.”

“Well, good,” Clint said. “Your skin is perfect the way it is.”

“Non-redheads will never understand,” Pepper lamented.

“Understand what?” Tony asked, coming up and handing Pepper an ice cream cone.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Where’s mine?” Clint pouted, reaching for the ice cream cone Pepper now held. 

“Over there, with all the rest,” Tony said, waving over by the food table.

“Rude.” Then he noticed that Tony, while wearing swim trunks, had not actually gotten into the pool yet. “Hey, why don’t you come swimming?”

“And ruin this hair day?” Tony scoffed. “No way.”

Clint caught Natasha’s eye and she winked, then nudged Pepper. Together, they leaned over and unceremoniously shoved Tony into the pool.

“Yes!” Clint shouted. Natasha and Pepper high-fived as Tony came up sputtering.

“Very funny,” he said, running his hands over his now flattened hair. He placed his hands like he was going to splash Natasha and Pepper, but they both gave him that ‘I will kill you’ glare, so he turned and splashed Clint instead.

“Hey!” Clint laughed, splashing back.

And the splash war began.

It went on until Lucky, who had been sleeping beneath an umbrella, became alarmed by the noise and ran up to the edge of the pool, barking frantically.

“It’s okay, Lucky!” Natasha tried to assure him. “They’re just playing!”

Clint stopped splashing, but it was too late – Lucky, either from a desire to protect him or to join in on the fun, jumped into the pool, splashing Natasha where she stood.

Clint couldn’t help it – he burst out laughing, reaching out to pet Lucky as he doggy-paddled in circles around him. Tony and Pepper laughed too, and so did Natasha, who shrugged and jumped in.

She stuck her head up right in front of him and wiped the water from her eyes. “Sun’s almost set anyway,” she said.

Clint smiled. “So, is jumping into pools something we need to teach him not to do?”

Natasha looked at Lucky, who was swimming after a laughing Tony, and she smiled, too. “No. I think jumping into pools is fine.”

They swam until it got dark and a little too cold to be in the water, and the few of them that were still there gathered around a bonfire. Natasha curled up in his lap and Lucky laid beside his chair. 

“I may just fall asleep here,” Natasha mumbled, tucking her head into his shoulder.

“Fine with me,” Clint said softly, stroking her hair.

“I wish we could have fireworks,” Steve said from his chair.

“We should have brought sparklers or something,” Maria said.

“Just wait,” Tony said with a mysterious grin. Pepper looked at him questioningly and he just grinned wider.

“Those are still happening?” Bucky asked.

“Well, yeah,” Tony said. “I already got the permit, and one day is really too soon to cancel.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Steve asked.

“No idea,” Bucky said, but joined in Tony’s mysterious grin and Clint was officially curious. Natasha, half asleep against his chest, remained oblivious.

A few moments later, Clint heard a distant sort of screeching noise, and then the sky exploded in a pop of red, white, and blue.

“Fireworks?” Steve exclaimed. Clint moved his shoulder to nudge Natasha, but she had already been roused by the noise and was gazing up at the sky as more fireworks shot up.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, and Clint spared a glance to see him smiling at Steve. “I told you I was going to propose today. This is when I was gonna do it… sorry I couldn’t wait.”

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” Steve told him.

Clint saw Natasha smile at them before turning back to the fireworks. He wanted to watch the fireworks, he really did, but the colors reflected in her face were even more mesmerizing.

 _Don’t propose,_ he reminded himself firmly. Even if he had the ring with him, Steve and Bucky literally just got engaged yesterday; now was so not the time.

It was kind of a shame, since this would otherwise be a perfect moment. But it wasn’t _their_ perfect moment, he knew. He just hoped that when he finally did work up the courage to propose, he could do something just as special.

Natasha nuzzled further into him and he put both his arms around her, resting his head against hers as they watched the fireworks. Lucky, exhausted after his first outing, slept peacefully at their feet.

So it was a pretty special moment, anyway.

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long since my last update! Sorry the holidays are spaced so far apart... and that it's two months til the next one. 
> 
> Also, you may have noticed I took two couples out of the tags, Lance/Bobbi and Coulson/May, just because it's taken longer than I thought it would to work them into the story. But I'm hoping to still get them in a future chapter! 
> 
> Next time: Labor Day


	7. Labor Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Labor Day to my American readers, and happy Monday to everyone else! Similar to Memorial Day, this chapter has little to do with the actual holiday. Hope you enjoy anyway! Also, there are some Agents of Shield characters in here but you don't need to watch that show to get the chapter.

“You nervous?”

“No.” Clint scoffed, but his knuckles had gone white on the steering wheel and she saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

“Me too,” Natasha confessed. “But Phil said she was excited to meet us.”

“Exactly. She’s got expectations. What if I don’t measure up?”

“You’ll probably exceed them,” she said, although she had the same fear. “C’mon, she’s seven. It’s unreasonable for us to be this scared of her.”

Clint chuckled and his shoulders relaxed slightly, which was what she was hoping for. Really, she had no doubt that Phil and May’s new daughter was going to love Clint. What she was more worried about was Skye’s reaction to _her._ Natasha had very little experience with children. Her youngest students were 14. And there was a big difference between seven and fourteen - or so she’d read.

But they’d already driven nearly two hours, so it wasn’t like she could back out now. 

Phil and May lived upstate, in a small house on a relatively large property. Natasha had been there a few times before and she had always enjoyed it. She’d never come there to meet a kid, though, and she had no idea what to expect. What if she was so awkward around Skye that she traumatized her or something? What if Phil and May wouldn’t want Natasha around anymore because of it and then Clint would be mad because Phil was basically his family and –

“We’re here,” Clint said, helpfully interrupting her train of thought before it derailed further into irrational mode. He’d already unbuckled and turned the car off. How long had she been staring into space?  

Clint reached over and squeezed her hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” She squeezed back and got out of the car, grabbing the homemade cupcakes (from Steve and Bucky) that they’d brought for dessert. 

“Let’s just go around back,” Clint said as she tried to head up to the front door. “I smell charcoal, they’re probably already out back.”

“Charcoal?” Natasha questioned, but followed him around the side of the house anyway.

“It’s Labor Day,” he said, as if that was enough of an explanation. “They’re gonna barbeque.”

“Why is cooking food on an open flame such a staple of American holidays?

“Cuz ‘Murica!” Clint enthused. “Does there need to be a reason?”

“I guess not.”

Phil and May’s backyard was a large area with a flat deck and a grassy lawn that gradually sloped down into a small creek, mostly shaded by trees. May was on the deck by the grill, seasoning a plate stacked high with meat, while Phil and a dark-haired little girl were playing catch with a baseball.

Natasha consciously kept her face and body calm as all three of them noticed her and Clint’s arrival. Phil and Skye started walking towards the deck so they could all meet there.

“Thanks for making the drive,” May said, taking the large Tupperware from Natasha and setting it on the picnic table.

“Of course,” Clint responded easily, but Natasha knew that he, like her, was focused on the little girl hiding behind Phil’s legs. “This must be Skye,” he said gently.

“It sure is,” Phil said. “Don’t be shy, Skye, come meet Uncle Clint and Aunt Natasha.”

Natasha saw Clint’s eyes and grin both widen. Even Natasha, who knew that the titles were mostly for Clint’s benefit and she was only included because she was his soulmate, was touched that Phil included her all the same.

“I really have an aunt and uncle?” Skye asked, peering out from behind Phil’s legs and gazing up at them.

“You do,” May said. “Remember we told you, from the city?”

Clint crouched down to Skye’s level and Natasha followed his example. “Hi,” he said softly. “I’m Clint. This is my soulmate, Natasha.”

“Hi,” Natasha said, trying not let her feelings of awkwardness bleed through in her voice.

Skye stepped most of the way out from behind Phil’s legs. “Hi.”

“I saw you and Phil playing catch,” Clint said. “Do you know how to play monkey in the middle?”

Skye shook her head.

“Well I’ll teach you!” Clint leaned closer and fake-whispered, “I bet Phil makes a good monkey.”

Skye giggled a bit.

“You coming?” Clint asked as he stood up, and Natasha again followed his lead.

“Uh, I’m gonna help May out with lunch,” she said. “But I’ll play later!” She smiled at Skye so she didn’t hurt her feelings, but the child was already tugging on Phil’s hand to get back into the yard.

“Okay,” Clint said, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek before joining Phil and Skye.

May had gone back to the grill. “What? You think I can’t handle cooking hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob, potatoes, baked beans, and broccoli all by myself?” She gave Natasha a small, grateful smile.

“Oh, I’m sure you can,” Natasha said. “But I’d like to make it a little easier on you, anyway.”

“Appreciated. You can start by shucking the corn.”

She made her way over to the small table next to the grill, where five ears of corn sat still in their husks.

“Are Bobbi and Hunter not coming?” Natasha asked.

“Oh, no they’re not,” May said. “They ended up taking a trip down to Boston. Trying to be more spontaneous.”

“Clint mentioned they were working on their issues.”

“Yeah, this is part of that. Soulmate counselor said it would help. Though I don’t think spontaneity is really their problem.”

Natasha had still yet to meet Bobbi and Hunter, but from what Clint had told her, and what she’d heard from May and Phil, she had to agree. A couple who had once ended up drunkenly throwing bottles at each other from opposite rooftops did not sound like they needed _more_ spontaneity.

“Maybe the therapist should have ordered them to stay at home all day.”

May smirked a little and exhaled out of her nose louder than usual, her equivalent of a laugh. “They wouldn’t make it past breakfast.”

It wasn’t long before loud laughter made its way to them from the yard, where Clint and Skye were tossing a ball back and forth over Phil’s head. Phil caught a throw from Clint, which Clint had probably wanted to happen, since he cheered as he took the middle spot.

Natasha caught May’s subtle smile as she, too, watched the three of them play.

“Skye seems great,” Natasha said, giving the other woman an opening.

“She’s amazing,” May said matter-of-factly. Melinda May was a fierce, no-nonsense woman, and she was not gushing or exaggerating when she spoke of her daughter. “She was shy at first, but she’s opened up in the last month. It’s remarkable how imaginative and thoughtful she is.”

Natasha nodded along, not really sure how to respond to a parent’s praise of their child when it wasn’t related to ballet. Out in the yard, Clint was still in the middle, making a show of missing the ball every time it was thrown past him, sometimes diving into the grass or jumping in the wrong direction, sending Skye into peals of laughter.

“Clint’s a natural,” May observed.

“Yeah,” Natasha said thoughtfully. “He is.” She’d had only rare chances to observe Clint with children before, and now that she thought about it, he was always very good with them.

“Hey monkeys!” May yelled. “We’re gonna need some more help with lunch up here!”

By this time, Natasha had shucked all of the corn, and the meat was cooking on the grill. When Clint, Phil, and Skye came up to the deck – faces slightly pink with exertion and all of them smiling – May slapped a pair of tongs into Phil’s hand. “You boys man the grill. Natasha and I are going to work on the other dishes inside.”

“Clint and an open flame?” Natasha teased. “Are you sure, May?”

“I have full confidence –“

“Thank you!” Clint grinned.

“In Phil’s ability to fix Clint’s mistakes,” May continued.

“Aww.” Clint’s shoulders slumped and he pretended to look sad, plopping onto the seat next to Natasha. “You two wound me.”

“You’ll recover.” Natasha patted his shoulder.

“Skye,” May said, turning to her daughter. “Would you like to stay outside with the boys, or come inside with us?”

“Inside,” Skye said quickly. “I’m cold.”

“I told you to wear long pants,” Phil said, and Natasha saw Skye roll her eyes as they walked inside.

_The sass is strong with this one,_ Natasha thought approvingly.

She became nervous, though, once she, May, and Skye were sealed up in the kitchen together, May and Natasha at the counter and Skye at the table. She was probably supposed to make conversation with Skye, right? May, thankfully, talked to Skye as she sat watching them cook (well, May was cooking; Natasha was doing things like peeling potatoes and opening cans). But still, she couldn’t just ignore the kid, so she’d occasionally comment on something, or compliment a drawing on the fridge. It became more natural after a while, even getting to the point where she wasn’t that uncomfortable anymore.

Then the curveball came.

Natasha had noticed that Skye was getting bored earlier – she was slouched over the table, head resting on her fist, kicking her feet back and forth. May, who wasn’t far behind on this observation, then said, “Skye, why don’t you go show Natasha all your toys in the living room?”

“Okay!” Skye perked up immediately, hopping down from her chair.

Natasha threw a panicked look at May, hoping to convey some sense of _I have no idea how to act around this child!_ Through her eyes. May gave her a small, encouraging smile. “We’re pretty much done with all the prep work, anyway.”

“Uh, okay,” Natasha said, putting down her knife and looking down into Skye’s eager face. “That sounds fun.”

Skye took her hand and guided her into the living room, and Natasha felt her nerve level dropping off a bit; Skye was clearly happy to show her the toys she had (and there were quite a few; it didn’t surprise her that Phil and May would want to spoil their child a bit) and all Natasha really had to do was ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ at every game, doll, stuffed animal, and book that Skye showed her.

“You wanna color?” Skye asked, holding up a pack of crayons and a book with animals on the cover.

“Uh, sure,” Natasha said. She could do that.

Skye sat down on the floor in front of the coffee table and spread the crayons out. “I’m working on this puppy,” she said, showing Natasha a page with a puppy that was, so far, red, yellow, and purple. “You can work on this pig.” She tore out the page next to the puppy and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” Natasha said, grabbing a pink crayon. “So, uh, you like coloring?” She winced, realizing how lame she sounded.

Skye nodded. “Do you?”

“Um, I can’t remember if I’ve ever colored before,” Natasha said and immediately regretted it. She should have just said yes – now Skye was going to ask _why_ and she’d have to tell her that she was poor for most of her childhood and unable to do anything but ballet for the rest of it and she could not think of an appropriate way to explain that to a seven-year-old.

But Skye just nodded as if she understood, and Natasha realized she probably did. Not about the ballet, but she’d been adopted after all, which meant she’d likely lived in foster care before that. She was probably well-acquainted with not having done certain things that are considered normal for a child.

“You and Clint are soulmates, right?” Skye asked suddenly, not looking up from giving the puppy a blue tail. 

“Yeees.” Natasha drew out the word curiously.

“How come you don’t have kids?”

“Uh –“ she paused, taken aback and unsure how to respond. _This_ she vaguely remembered from her encounters with younger kids while in the foster system: blunt non-sequiturs that adults had no idea how to answer. “Well,” she finally said. “We didn’t meet until last year.”

“But do you want kids?” Skye continued doggedly, but casually at the same time, still not even looking up from her coloring, completely unaware of how Natasha’s pulse had suddenly sped up.  

_Did_ she want kids? How the hell was she supposed to know? She’d never really thought about it before, at least not for long.

Finally, deciding that Phil and May would probably tell her to answer Skye honestly, she said, “I’m not sure. We haven’t talked about it.”

Skye mercifully accepted that and dropped the line of questioning in favor of talking about her Lego collection. Natasha, though, couldn’t get her mind off the track Skye had put it on.

She’d always just assumed she wouldn’t have kids. After all, for most of her life she’d believed she didn’t have a soulmate, and she’d never wanted a child enough to consider having one on her own. But now that she clearly did have a soulmate… what did she want?

The only thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t want to be pregnant. The amount of time she wouldn’t be able to work was enough to make the idea unappealing. Of course, she didn’t need to get pregnant to have a kid… but would Clint want children who weren’t genetically his? Would he want children at all? And was she more afraid of a _yes_ or a _no_?

“Lemme see,” Skye said, jolting her back to the present. She was holding up her own puppy coloring, which was completely filled in and remarkably in the lines for someone so young… or was that a normal level for seven? She had no idea what stage in coloring ability children should be at.

“So colorful,” Natasha said, smiling so Skye knew she meant it in a good way. “I’ve still only got pink.” She had absent-mindedly been coloring as her thoughts wandered, and not only was the pig pink, but the barn behind it had a pink roof as well.

“You can’t just make the whole thing one color,” Skye said as if speaking a universal truth.

Skye was helping her pick out more colors when Natasha heard footsteps and looked up to see Clint standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, grinning.

“Coloring?” He asked excitedly, coming over to where they sat. “I love coloring!”

“We’ve got room!” Skye pushed aside some of the crayons so she could put another page in front of Clint. “You sit by Natasha cuz you’re soulmates.”

“I love sitting by Tasha,” Clint said, smiling at her as he plopped gracelessly onto the floor.

“Is the meat done?” Natasha asked.

Clint grimaced. “Not quite. I’ve been banished, though.”

“What’s banished mean?” Skye asked.

“It means sent away.” Natasha smirked at Clint. “What could you possibly have done? All you had to do is flip some burgers.”

“It’s harder than it looks!” Clint crossed his arms and pouted, causing Skye to giggle. “Those tongs are slippery!”

Natasha joined Skye’s giggles and leaned over the coffee table to say conspiratorially, “That means he dropped some of the food on the ground.”

“Did not!” Clint protested, clearly playing up his indignation for Skye’s amusement. “For your information, I dropped a hot dog under the grill into the charcoal… and then maybe I also dropped the tongs when I tried to rescue it.”

Skye burst into the kind of exaggerated laughter only children could get away with, and Clint’s fake pout finally broke.

“You’re a disaster.” Natasha shook her head.

“This from the woman who threw oil onto a hot stove –“

“I did not _throw_ it –“

“Why did you throw oil onto the stove?” Skye asked, still chuckling.

“I did _not –_ ugh, Clint, you’re corrupting the child.”

“I’m not the one who set off our smoke alarm.” He gave her his best innocent smile.

“Because I _dropped_ some oil –“

“From all the way across the kitchen.”

“Onto a burner that _you_ left on –“

“She was trying to start a food fight,” he said to Skye.

“Do _not_ put the idea of food fights into my daughter’s head,” Coulson said behind them.

“How long have you been there?” Natasha asked.

“Why do you always lurk behind people?” Clint wondered.

“I wouldn’t start a food fight!” Skye declared.

“I know,” Phil said, smiling gently at her. “ _You_ have manners.”

“How dare you?” Clint asked indignantly.

“I’m offended.” Natasha had trouble containing her smile, especially when she met Clint’s eyes; he was really into this pretending-to-be-offended game.

“Hi offended, I’m Phil.”

Skye and Clint groaned, and from the kitchen May shouted, “One more dad joke and you get no lunch!” Which quieted Phil pretty effectively.

Except to say, “Oh, yeah, lunch is ready. Skye, why don’t you show our guests to the dining room?”

Even though they’d been there numerous times, Natasha and Clint allowed Skye to lead them through the house, chattering all the way about how Phil’s dad jokes made May angry but not 'for real angry'. And Natasha thought, _this isn’t so hard._

They were in the car on their way home when Natasha finally got the courage to even come near the subject.

“So, it seems like the adoption went really well.”

She could feel Clint looking at her from the passenger seat, but she used the excuse of paying attention to the road to avoid eye contact. She didn’t want him to realize she was fishing.

“Yeah, Skye is a great kid. Phil and May are super happy.”

“Skye is too,” Natasha said quietly. “Adoption seems like a pretty cool thing.”

“Yeah, it’s an awesome thing!” He said firmly. “Lots of kids out there like her.”

“Like we were.”

“Like we were,” Clint echoed. “I think it’s important to give them homes.”

Here she risked a glance Clint’s way, and he was giving her a small, almost serene smile.

She returned it. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some difficulty with this chapter. Like Natasha, I have little experience with children. I based Skye's speech and actions mostly on my young cousins, so I hope she acted realistic. 
> 
> Next time: Halloween


	8. Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!! I hope you guys like this chapter, I had a lot of fun writing it.

“I think you all know why I’ve gathered you here today.” Clint stood with his hands held behind his back, glaring at them all like a disappointed teacher. Natasha might have found it funny if he didn’t seem so serious.

“We woke up here,” Bobbi pointed out irritably.

“Yeah, and then you dragged us in here.” Tony, no less peevish, indicated the living room where they were reluctantly seated.

“As you know,” Clint said loudly, as if neither of them had spoken. “Last night was our Halloween party -“

“Is that why I’m wearing this costume?” Tony wondered aloud.

“- And you have all _ruined_ it.”

“Can you keep it down, mate?” Hunter groaned. “Pretty sure we’ve all got hangovers the size of Big Ben.”

“You’re British, we get it,” Maria muttered.

Clint huffed, annoyed at their interruptions. “Your hangovers will help you feel your punishment more.”

It was, Natasha thought, sort of hard to take Clint seriously when he was still half-dressed as a scarecrow. He hadn’t had as much to drink last night as the rest of them, but he’d been drunk enough to fall asleep before undressing. There was still hay coming out of his socks and sleeves.

Not that the rest of them looked much better. Natasha was the only one who had changed out of her costume (Dorothy), as the rest of them had all passed out at some point in the party. Bobbi and Hunter were leaning against a wall, cop and robber costumes bedraggled. Tony’s suit wasn’t too disheveled, even though he’d passed out right on the floor, but the penciled-in mustache on his face had gotten smudged, so he didn’t much resemble Gomez Addams anymore. Maria was slouched on the arm chair (the couch was too full of party debris to make a viable option). Her cop “costume” (aka her actual uniform) was wrinkled and her hair was a disaster. And Steve and Bucky…

“Hey, how come Steve gets to sleep?” Tony turned to where Steve was laying on the kitchen counter on his back, arms falling down on either side. 

Clint practically growled. Despite herself, Natasha kind of wanted to know where Clint was going with this rant, so she decided to step in. Getting up from her spot on the floor next to Lucky, who was somehow managing to sleep through this, she marched quickly to the kitchen. Bucky had fallen asleep on the kitchen floor, holding Steve’s hand where it dangled over the counter. Steve’s lion mane had fallen off at some point, but most of the make-up had stayed on, as had Bucky’s Tinman face paint. They looked as tired and hungover as the others, but Natasha had no pity and dragged them into the living room with the others.

She also kicked Tony in the thigh on her way back.

“Ow,” he grumbled, but finally stopped interrupting Clint.

“Some of us have to get to work, you know,” Steve said around a yawn.    

“Nice try,” Clint said, as if he thought it was actually a pretty terrible try. “I know you and Maria have the night shift tonight. Plus Nat doesn’t have to leave for half an hour, Tony works whenever he feels like it, and Bobbi and Hunter took the day off.”

“Never thought I’d regret it, either,” Bobbi mumbled.

“What’s the big deal, Clint?” Bucky asked. He was sitting up, but his eyes were closed as if he was seconds away from falling asleep right there. “It was a party. Sometimes things get a little out of hand.”

“A _little?_ ” Clint yelled, causing most of them to wince or groan in pain. “Let me tell you about a _little_.”

“Here we go.” Hunter sighed.

Clint rounded on Hunter and Bobbi, who sunk slightly down the wall. “You two.” He pointed his finger between them. “I don’t know what was worse; the half of the night you spent fighting, or the half you spent trying to have sex on our bed!”

Natasha cringed a bit at the thought. It was a good thing Sam had happened to walk in on them or they’d have had to burn the mattress.

“Oh wait,” Clint continued his rant, directed mostly at Hunter. “I know what was worse! When you kept daring Steve to do stupid stuff!” He turned his attention to Steve, who was already looking his characteristic combination of ashamed and defiant. “Is your inability to turn down dares a medical condition or something?”

Natasha privately thought that it was. She’d always known that Steve would do almost anything if dared and she tried to never use that knowledge for evil, as Hunter had last night. The dares had escalated from roaring like a lion out the window to eating some of Lucky’s flea medicine – at which point Bucky thankfully intervened to keep Steve from poisoning himself.

“I was super drunk!” Steve said defensively.

“Are we allowed to use drunkenness as an excuse?” Tony asked seriously. “Because I was so hammered I don’t even remember most of the night. Pepper just found out she’s pregnant, and until she gives birth I’m not allowed to drink unless it’s a special occasion. Now I’ve got to fit nine months of drinking into like five holidays. You should be grateful I’m not in the hospital or something.”

Clint did not seem very grateful. “That is no excuse,” he said. “For getting up on the coffee table and singing ‘Superstitious’ even though we all _begged_ you not to.”

“That’s not that bad,” Tony said, as if kind of surprised that he didn’t do anything worse.

“It wasn’t until you started stripping,” Bucky chimed in.

“You threw your jacket and broke a lamp.” Clint indicated the now empty end table.

“You’re welcome. That lamp was ugly anyway.” Tony looked like he was about to add more, but he finally caught sight of Natasha’s death glare and clammed up.

“And you,” Clint said, rounding on Maria, who had unwisely called attention to herself by laughing at Tony’s lamp comment. “You might be the worst one! Why did you have to be so rude to Sharon the whole night?  She was already nervous because she’d never met any of you before, and you went and made it worse! If you weren’t ignoring her when she tried to talk to you, you were glaring at her from across the room!”

Maria was glowering, arms crossed defensively. “I wasn’t that rude.”

“You literally walked away every time she came near you!” Clint said, and Maria turned her eyes angrily towards the floor.

Natasha, who knew the cause of Maria’s behavior, debated whether she should text Sharon.

Meanwhile, Tony was apparently getting restless because he hadn’t gotten to speak in almost a minute. “Why aren’t the other children being scolded?” He asked. “Thor broke two glasses! Darcy got sick like ten minutes in!”

“Because Thor apologized,” Clint said, voice mock-patient. “Plus, he didn’t pass out on our floor, so he wouldn’t be here to receive his scold anyway. Same goes for Darcy. Besides, spending half the night throwing up because _someone_ –“ Here he glared at Natasha. “Encouraged her to drink absinthe is punishment enough.”

“I thought her tolerance would be better,” Natasha said sheepishly.

“This actually brings us to our most subtle, and yet perhaps most prevalent, offender,” Clint said dramatically, still looking at her. He went into full on detective-explaining-a-crime voice, pacing back and forth across the living room while everyone watched with varying degrees of amusement. “Those of you who paid close attention may have noticed a background player in all of these incidents. _Someone_ plying people with alcohol. Someone telling Hunter a good dare for Steve. Someone playing ‘Superstitious’ even though she _knows_ Tony can’t resist singing that song. Does anyone know who that someone was?”

All eyes turned to Natasha.

“You’ll never prove it,” she said to Clint, taking on a persona as well. Though, judging by his deepened frown, he’d been more serious than she was.

She was saved from his guilt-inducing stare by a knock on the door. Partially to get away from that look, and partly because she knew who it would be, she was the one who got up to answer it.

“Maybe it’s Pepper here to save me,” Tony said, laying on the floor as if pitifully unable to move.

“Not quite,” Natasha said, pulling open the door to reveal Sharon, the ballet teacher she’d hired a few months ago.

“Hey,” Sharon said, eyes sliding immediately past Natasha to land on Maria, who sat frozen just in view of the front door. Maria said nothing, and, after a slightly hesitant glance at Natasha, Sharon continued, “Nat texted me, but I was already on my way here anyway. I have to be at work in 20 minutes, but wanna go grab a bagel or something?”

Maria glared at Natasha, but it was half-hearted at best. Natasha knew Maria fairly well now, and knew she’d be feeling bad about her behavior last night.

After a tense pause, Maria’s shoulders deflated and she nodded. “Alright.”

Everyone but Natasha was surprised when they left together. She could tell Clint and Steve were both bursting with questions, although Clint was trying hard to keep his stern expression.

“Why does she get to leave?” Hunter asked Clint obnoxiously, as if he and Bobbi hadn’t been planning on staying for the rest of the day. 

“You’re being such a drama queen about this, anyway,” Tony said.

Natasha kind of agreed with him, but she kicked him again on her way back from the front.

Bobbi swatted Hunter on the shoulder. “Hunter and Tony are being assholes,” she told Clint. “But they kind of have a point. While I am sorry that we tried to drunkenly have sex on your bed –“ she swatted Hunter again when he chuckled “It just sounds like a party that got a bit out of control. Why are you so upset?”

Clint’s eyes automatically went to Natasha’s, and something in his expression told her what she mostly already knew.

“You can go,” Clint said after a moment.

“Finally!” Tony heaved himself up off the floor; he’d probably been faking the worst of his hangover symptoms. “My car should be out front,” he said to Steve and Bucky. “You guys can get a ride with me.”

Steve and Bucky exchanged quick glances, seemed to decide that dealing with Tony’s obnoxiousness wasn’t as bad as the subway, and agreed.

“We’re gonna go take a nap,” Bobbi said, and she and Hunter dragged themselves into the spare room, shutting the door behind them. Tony, Steve, and Bucky left, and Natasha was glad they wouldn’t have to be on the street long in their bedraggled costumes, although they probably wouldn’t have been that out of place on the subway.

At last, she was alone with Clint, who was acting as if the straw sticking out of his sleeves was suddenly fascinating.

“Clint,” Natasha said gently. “Are you still upset because of the anniversary thing?”

“Well, isn’t that why you were drinking so much?” He asked. “I mean, you were _drunk,_ Nat. I don’t think I’d ever seen you drink enough for it to actually affect you before.”

“Yeah,” Natasha admitted. “But only because I knew you were upset.”

_It was the morning before. Natasha had already been up for an hour when Clint stumbled out of the bedroom, wearing a goofy smile and hair that went in twelve different directions. “Happy early anniversary,” he’d said._

_Natasha arched a confused eyebrow. “Very early. Our anniversary isn’t til Christmas.”_

_“What are you talking about?” He chuckled. “We met on Halloween.”_

_“Yeah, but we didn’t know we were soulmates until Christmas.”_

_His smile fell. “Soulmate anniversaries are always on the day they met.”_

_“Because soulmates usually find out they’re soulmates on the day they meet. We had no idea what we were to each other on Halloween.”_

_“We celebrated our six-month anniversary in April!” Clint said._

_“I thought you were just bad at math. I didn’t want to say anything.”_

_And it went back and forth like that for a while, until it ended with Clint marching into their bedroom and refusing to talk about it. He had pouted all day, which made Natasha half-angry and half-guilty, a combination that invariably led to drinking._

“Sorry I overreacted,” Clint mumbled, eyes downcast. “I guess I just figured it would be a little more… romantic.”

“You thought our Halloween costume party was gonna be romantic?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Not romantic-romantic. Just… I don’t know!” He seemed frustrated with his inability to articulate what was wrong, and Natasha sort of regretted bringing it up. “I just kept thinking about how this is exactly when and where we met a year ago and that we could… I don’t know, be together more instead of watching our friends act like idiots.”

“But why…” Now Natasha struggled to articulate herself. “How could you think our anniversary is on Halloween? We weren’t together until Christmas. We had to spend two months being miserable until I found my soulmark. I thought I was gonna have to watch you meet your soulmate and leave me behind.”

Clint’s face cleared up, frown transforming into a soft smile. “Is that what you remember?” He took each of her hands in his and pulled her a little closer. Natasha felt a little ridiculous after her rambling confession, but forced herself to meet his gaze.

“Tasha,” he continued, the nickname rolling off his lips. “You’re focusing on the bad stuff from those two months. But you wanna know what I remember?” Clint brought their clasped hands up to rest on his chest. “I remember getting to know this amazing, confident, intelligent woman. I remember talking and teaching you sign language and staying up late watching _Star Wars._ And yeah, it was hard to keep myself from telling you how much I loved you, but I got to fall in love with you without the pressure of knowing we were soulmates. And I’ll always know those two months were worth it.”

He was blushing by the end of his speech. Lest he get self-conscious, Natasha untangled their hands and pulled him into her arms, pressing a kiss to his shoulder then resting her head on it.

“Well, when you put it that way,” she said into his neck. “I guess that makes sense… also, I’m sorry for aiding and abetting our friends in their drunken stupidity.”

“S’okay. I guess we’ll just have two anniversaries now. Can I still give you your present though?”

“After I get home from work, okay?”

“Yeah, I actually have to go pick it up anyway,” he said.

 _Thank goodness,_ Natasha thought. She’d feel guilty unless she got him a present after work.

“So.” Clint suddenly got his gossip-y grin. “Maria and Sharon, huh? What’s Sharon’s mark say?”

Natasha matched his grin. She’d been the only one who overheard Maria and Sharon’s first meeting last night, and she’d been dying to tell Clint. “It’s a good one: _’Oh, fucking hell.’_ ”

He snorted. “Sounds like Maria. Well, Sharon’s great. She’ll come around.”

Natasha thought about the mark on Clint’s stomach, the one that he’d showed her exactly a year ago to explain why he’d thought she was his soulmate. She thought about the tattoo on her arm, the replica of her soulmark that was hidden under the skin. She’d gotten it just a couple of weeks ago to surprise Clint - her _soulmate,_ something she’d convinced herself she’d never have, that she’d never even want.

Maria and Sharon met at a Halloween party, too.

“Yeah,” Natasha said, giving Clint a soft smile. “She will.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering, Clint's present for Natasha is a cat :D (Edit: I added a little comment fic!)
> 
> Next time: Thanksgiving


	9. Thanksgiving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a rough couple of weeks here in America, but I had fun writing this chapter, so I hope it helps you smile!

“C’mon, Nat, we can do this! How hard can it be to follow a recipe?”

“Clint, the only thing I can cook is spaghetti, and you’ve never managed anything more complicated than toast. We’re disasters at cooking.”

“Yeah, but we’ve learned from our mistakes. Like, we know not to throw oil onto the hot stove –“

“I _dropped_ it! And you did the same thing –“

“ _And_ we won’t put the oven on broil unless the instructions specifically say to.”

“I don’t think we’ll need to broil apple pie.”

“Why are we making apple pie anyway? Aren’t you supposed to have pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving?”

“Steve wants both, and he says pumpkin pie is too complicated for us. Hence, we are in charge of the apple.”

“I am offended. I can handle pumpkin pie.”

“You couldn’t even roast those pumpkin seeds last month.”

“Nat! You swore you’d never bring that up again!”

“You swore you set the oven timer, and yet.”

“The smoke wasn’t that bad. And those firefighters were very understanding.”

“Whatever, Clint. Can we just get started? We’re supposed to be at Steve and Bucky’s by two.”

“Okay, you have the recipe. What’s the first step?”

“Um… cook the pie crust.”

“Thank god for store-bought pie crusts. Next?”

“Well, let’s preheat the oven. It says 450 for 10 minutes, and then 350 for 40 minutes.”

“Ugh. Can’t we just put it at 400 for the whole thing?”

“Remember the last time you didn’t put something at the right temperature?”

“Stupid hash browns. Fine, I’ll follow the weird instructions. Next?”

“Peel and slice four Granny Smith apples.”

“Granny Smith? It has to be a specific kind of apple?”

“Why, what kind did we get?”

“Uh, sticker says Red Delicious.”

“Crap.”

“I thought apples were just red or green. Who brought names into it?”

“Whatever, it’s probably fine. Let’s just peel them.”

“We only have one peeler.”

“I’ll just use a knife.”

“… Wow, you’re really good at that, Tasha.”

“Oh my god, are you turned on by my knife skills?”

“A little. Is that weird?”

“Eh. I like it when you sharpen your arrows, so it’s probably the same kind of thing.”

“You like it when I sharpen my arrows? Should I do it more? Should I do it shirtless?”

“Focus on peeling, Clint. But yes to all three.”

“Awesome.”

 “… Done.”

“See how easy this is? Now we just… have to… cut them… argh, why is this is so hard?”

“The core, I guess. We probably need a sharper knife. Hang on, I’ll get one.”

“But we only have – Jesus, Nat, where did that giant thing come from?”

“Taped under the counter. Calm down, it’s not _that_ big.”

“How long has it been there?!”

“Since before you moved in. It’s for emergencies.”

“I’m torn between scared and horny right now… I’m scorny.”

“Just cut the apples, Clint.”

“Wow, this works way better. I am _owning_ these cores. Take that, dumb app – ow!”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you cut yourself?”

“No… the apple bit me.”

“I’ll get a bandage.”

“Thanks… kiss it and make it all better? For old time’s sake?”

“You’re ridiculous… better?”

“Much. Anyway, the spiteful apples are all cut. Now what?”

“Put them in a bowl and mix them with half a cup of sugar, 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg, and a teaspoon of cinnamon.”

“First of all, the fuck is nutmeg? And second, how are we supposed to know how much half a cup is?”

“Oh, right. We don’t have any measuring cups, do we?”

“That would be a no.”

“Well, maybe we can use… this wine glass?”

“Looks like a cup to me.”

“Alright, then fill it half way… that’s well over half, Clint.”

“Well, it’s not exact, and better to be too sweet than not sweet enough, right?”

“I suppose. Alright. And we don’t have nutmeg?”

“Nope. But it’s only 1/8 of a teaspoon, how important can it be?”

“Okay, teaspoon of cinnamon. I guess we can just use a regular spoon for that.”

“I’ll put in two, just to be safe.”

“I don’t know. Might be better to underdo the cinnamon than overdo.”

“Too late. I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Then mix it all and pour it into one of the pie crusts.”

“How did I end up doing all the work?”

“It’s dangerous to ask questions. Now put the other pie crust on top of that.”

“Just like, flop it on there?”

“You can be more graceful about it… or not.”

“I broke it.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Well, let’s just try to mush it back together.”

“… It’s no use. We close it up somewhere and it just rips somewhere else.”

“It’s not so bad. Really, Clint, it’ll look fine once it’s cooked. Just pop it in there.”

“Okay… I hope we didn’t mess it up too bad. Maybe we shouldn’t have told Steve and Bucky we could make something.”

“No, you were right, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Besides, now we have 50 minutes with nothing to do…”

“Tasha, are you implying…”

“Mario Kart tournament!”

“Yes! You’re going down, Romanoff!”

“Gotta be a first time for everything, I suppose.”

“Rude.”

 

_50 Minutes Later_

“The pie probably wasn’t supposed to shrink like that, right?”

“No, Clint, it wasn’t. But that’s not as bad as all the liquid that leaked out of the side.”

“Good thing we put that tray there.”

“Too bad the edges burned, though.”

“Guess we should have set a timer so we’d remember to turn it down after 10 minutes.”

“Yeah… it’s ruined, isn’t it?”

“I definitely don’t want to bring it to Steve and Bucky’s. Imagine how inadequate it’ll feel sitting next to their perfect pumpkin pie.”

“Think we have time to stop by the store and buy one?”

“No. But I bet Steve and Bucky made a back-up pie in case we fucked up.”

“It’s a good thing they have no faith in our cooking abilities.”

“Ha! I’m using that as my thing I’m thankful for this year.”

“Fine. I’m going to use your lack of Mario Kart skills as mine.”

“Ouch. Cheap shot, Nat.”

“Whatever. I might say I’m thankful for you, too.”

“Don’t get all sappy, you know how Steve tears up when you do that.”

“Wouldn’t be a holiday if Steve didn’t get emotional about something.”

“True.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason this chapter was just begging me to write it in all dialogue. Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Next time: Christmas


	10. Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the last chapter! Happy holidays everyone!

“And that’s midnight! It’s officially Christmas!” Tony shouted to the room in general, though he was looking beseechingly at Pepper, who sighed but nodded. He gave a whoop of delight and produced, seemingly from nowhere, a bottle of whiskey from which he immediately began to drink.

“I didn’t count Christmas Eve as a holiday,” Pepper explained to Natasha and Jane. “So he had to wait to start drinking.”

“When are you due?” Jane asked.

“May,” Pepper said, cradling her finally noticeable baby bump with a fond smile. “So hopefully only three holidays left after this before he comes out and I can start drinking again.”

“He?” Natasha asked, almost dropping her drink. “I thought you weren’t gonna find out.”

“Oh, yeah!” Pepper grinned excitedly. “I forgot to tell you! I finally caved. Tony wanted to find out as soon as it was medically possible, I was lucky to hold him off this long. I’m glad we did though; now I’ve got five months to talk him out of Tony Jr.”

Then, to Natasha’s mild horror, the conversation turned to when Jane was going to have kids. It wasn’t that Natasha was concerned about Jane and Thor’s biological clocks (apparently, they were going to wait a few more years), but she knew that the question was inevitably going to get turned to her.

It took less than a minute; after discussing how many she wanted (two) Jane turned to her and asked “What about you, Nat?”

Despite the fact that she’d been expecting it, Natasha still found herself staring like a deer in headlights. “Uh… we haven’t really talked about it.” The closest they had come was skirting around the discussion a few months back, when they both said they thought adopting children was a good idea. 

Jane looked like she was ready to pursue this line of questioning, so Natasha spoke again before she could. “I’ve got to go find Clint! To, uh, tell him happy anniversary.” Which she should actually do, now that she thought about it. She’d been the one who insisted Christmas was their real anniversary, and not Halloween.

Knowing Clint, there was a good chance he’d already be pouting because she hadn’t come to find him yet.

 

“Mine was way better,” Thor was saying. “Doves, string quartet, huge hall. A wedding fit for royalty.”

Steve and Bucky both shook their heads. “Yours was nice,” Steve said. “But ours was simple and elegant. Just what a wedding should be.”

“And it was outside,” Bucky added. “With flowers that were already there.”

“Yeah, covered in snow,” Thor said, smiling good-naturedly.

“I think that only added to their beauty,” Steve declared.

“What do you think, Clint?” Bucky asked.

“Huh?” Clint, who hadn’t been paying attention since the start of this conversation, stared at all three of them blankly. “Sorry, what?”

“Whose wedding was better?” Thor asked. “Mine and Jane’s or Steve and Bucky’s?”

Clint’s loyalty wavered with his desire to tell the truth. He preferred Steve and Bucky’s himself; simple was better, and they didn’t make him wear a tux. But Thor had been one of his best friends for years.

So, he did what he always did in an awkward situation: make it even more awkward by blurting out the first thought that entered his head.

“I wanna marry Nat.”

Steve, Bucky, and Thor continued to stare at him, not seeming the least bit surprised.

“So why haven’t you?” Steve asked.

“Well, I have the ring,” Clint said, after looking around to make sure Nat wasn’t nearby. “I just haven’t found the right time yet.”

“How long have you had it?” Thor asked suspiciously.

“Um… a few months… like ten.”

“And in all those months, you never found a single moment you thought was right?” Bucky wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he was amused by this.

“Well, you know, first it was too soon,” Clint began defensively. “And then all of you guys started getting married. I didn’t want her to think I was only asking her because all our friends were doing it.”

“She won’t think that,” Steve said.

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. “Besides, she’s absolutely disgusting about you. Just ask.”

A warm feeling spread through Clint’s chest at that, and he couldn’t help but smile a little goofily. “I had a lot of ideas for how to propose after I first bought the ring, you know.”

Bucky and Thor both nodded in understanding. “I discarded a lot of plans before I settled on taking her on the sail boat,” Thor said.

“There were gonna be fireworks at mine,” Bucky said a little sheepishly. “But I couldn’t wait; ended up proposing the night before.”

“I think it was perfect.” Steve gave Bucky the kind of sappy look that would have made Natasha pretend to retch.

“You have a favorite idea?” Bucky asked Clint.

Clint shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, at first I was thinking of surprising her with this big thing. Like, sometime when all her friends were there, maybe New Year’s Eve, and calling to her from across the room. And then when she came over, I’d bend down, pretend to tie my shoe or something, and when she got to me someone would turn all the lights off, but there would be these fake candles all around that lit up the room and…” he trailed off, shrugging again.

“That’s really sweet, Clint,” Steve said.

“Yeah, but then I figured she wouldn’t want something so big,” Clint continued. “I’d probably do it just the two of us.”

“True,” Bucky said.

“What about the ring –“ Thor started to say.

“- toss!” Steve shouted suddenly, interrupting him. “Yes, I love ring toss! Oh, hey Nat!”

Clint, heart suddenly leaping to his throat, turned around to see Natasha walking up to them through the crowded room. 

“Hey, guys,” she said calmly, not looking as though she’d heard anything. “What are we talking about?”

Clint froze, but Bucky saved him. “Our honeymoon.”

Natasha predictably rolled her eyes. “Have we not exhausted that topic yet? You’ve been back for two weeks and it’s still Paris this, Rome that.”

“You weren’t complaining when we brought you back that dress from Milan,” Steve said, nodding to the red dress she was currently wearing.

“Yeah, maybe we should take it back.”

“You’ll pry it out of my cold, dead hands.”

Clint finally relaxed when it became clear the topic was steered well away from the ring. He swung his arm around Natasha’s shoulders and she smiled up at him, soft and genuine.  

“I actually came to find you because it’s our anniversary now,” she said quietly.

“Oh yeah!” Clint was surprised that he’d forgotten about this for even a few minutes. “Happy anniversary, Tasha.”

He leaned down to kiss her, not stopping when Thor, Steve, and Bucky all started to gag.

“Grow up.” Natasha laughed, leaning into Clint’s side a little bit.

“Yeah, like you don’t do that to us at every opportunity,” Bucky said.

“Whatever.” Natasha shook her head. “We should actually get going, though. We have to get up early tomorrow.”

“We’re spending Christmas day with Phil and Melinda,” Clint explained to the others. “And Phil says if we’re not there by 9, they’re opening presents without us.”

“Isn’t it like a two hour drive?” Steve asked.

“No way Clint’s getting up at 7,” Thor said.

“For Christmas presents?” Natasha grinned. “I think he’d even get up at 6.”

Clint shuddered. “Let’s not get carried away.”

“We’re just gonna go say goodbye to the others,” Natasha said.

After wishing Steve, Bucky, and Thor a Merry Christmas, Clint and Natasha started to make their way through the herd of drunken revelers.

Almost immediately, they (literally) ran into Sam and Darcy.

“Whoa!” Darcy, who was balancing on Sam’s shoulders, nearly tottered over. She got her grip, though, and they both laughed loudly.

“Hey guys,” Natasha said. To the world, she seemed to be keeping a straight face, but Clint could see the corner of her mouth twitch. “What’s up?”

“The ceiling,” Sam said. It took Clint a moment to realize that he wasn’t making a play on words; Darcy, from her place on his shoulders, was straining one hand up toward the high ceiling. “And we can’t touch it.” This was apparently a frustrating problem for the two of them.

“Hey, Natasha!” Darcy shouted, apparently just spotting her. “Climb up! I think we could touch it with three of us.”

“Gosh, I would,” Natasha said. “But we’re heading out.”

“Why don’t you just ask Tony for his hover boots?” Clint suggested.

Sam and Darcy both looked at him like he was a genius.

“Yessss!” They said loudly. And they took off back through the crowd, Darcy swaying precariously as she continued trying to touch the ceiling.

“You probably shouldn’t have said that,” Natasha said mildly.

“Eh. We won’t be here.”

“We still have to say goodbye to other people,” she reminded him.

“Ughhhhhhhhh.” Clint groaned dramatically. “We’ll be here forever trying to find anyone else. Half of Manhattan is at this party. And a good chunk of Brooklyn, too.”

Natasha made a face, but relented pretty quickly. “Alright, just Pepper then. She’s probably the only sober one left, anyway.”

They seemed destined to meet others on their way, though. They’d weaved their way through about a quarter of the huge room when they ran into Sharon, who was frowning.

“Have you guys seen Maria?”

Natasha shook her head.

“I thought you guys were good, now,” Clint said tentatively.

Sharon huffed, blowing some hair out of her face. “We are, until she thinks we’re getting even a little bit serious and she acts like I’m trying to sew us together.” She grabbed two shots off a passing waiter and downed them both at the same time. “I mean, you’d think I asked her to move in with me or something. All I said was she could leave a _couple_ things at my place.”

Then she spotted the waiter with the shots moving away, said, “Hey, come back,” and walked off to follow him.

“That didn’t sound good.”

“They’ll be fine,” Natasha assured him. “They do this once a week.”

They went to continue their search for Pepper, but had barely made it two steps before they were stopped again. First was Tony, pushing past them and mumbling something about hover boots. But Clint barely had time to think _‘uh-oh’_ before Maria accosted them, a mostly empty wine glass in hand.

“Were you just talking to Sharon? Did she say anything about me?”

Clint glanced at Nat, who shook her head nearly imperceptibly. “Just that she was looking for you.”

Maria screwed up her face and drained the last of her wine.

“And, uh, she sounded real casual,” Clint said. “Not serious or like she was moving too fast at all.” He cringed; that came out a lot better in his head.

Natasha rolled her eyes, but thankfully Maria seemed to be ignoring them. Sure enough, she walked off a couple seconds later to, Clint hoped, have a rational conversation with her soulmate.

“This is hopeless,” Natasha said, after they searched the room for another couple minutes.

“Why don’t we just shout ‘Pepper’ over and over until she finds us?” Clint suggested.

Natasha must have been really tired of searching, because she didn’t immediately say no. But before Clint could persuade her, Steve and Bucky found them.

“We thought you were leaving,” Bucky said.

“We’re trying,” Natasha told him. “But we can’t find Pepper.”

“I think I saw her over there,” Steve said, pointing towards the middle of the room. “With Sam and –“

He was cut off by the sound of a crash. They turned to where he was pointing just in time to see Tony falling from the ceiling, landing on a table laden with food. The room fell quiet enough to hear his groan of ‘I’m okay’ right before Pepper started yelling. “Anthony Edward Stark!”

“You know what?” Natasha said, grabbing Clint’s arm. “Let’s just get out of here before she finds out that’s kind of your fault.”

With all that excitement, and sneaking around the edges of the party to make it out before Pepper saw him, the earlier conversation about the ring was blown completely out of Clint’s mind.

Until Christmas night, of course. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed this little sequel! :)


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